
Class JLk^iO- 
Book. -plZM- 



COFXRIGHT DEPOSm 



••NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE" 



"NOTHING 
OF IMPORTANCE" 

EIGHT MONTHS AT THE FRONT 
WITH A WELSH BATTALION 

BY 

BERNARD ADAMS 

// 




NEW YORK 

ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY 

1918 



Copyright, 1918, by 
Robert M. McBride & Co. 



T^K.* 



Published March, 1918. 



IMY -2 1918 

©Ci,A494882 



A^O I 







TO 

T. R. G. 

WHO TAUGHT ME HOW TO THINK 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTBB FAGB 

Preface ix 

I. First Impressions . . . . 1 

II. CUINCHY AND GiVENCHY ... 20 

III. Working-Parties .... 45 

IV. Rest 68 

V. On the March 92 

VI, The Bois Prancais Trenches . . 101 

VII. More First Impressions . . . 123 

VIII. Sniping 140 

IX. On Patrol 163 

X. "Whom the gods love" , . . 173 

XI. ' ' Whom the gods love ' ' — ( Continued) 192 

XII. Officers' Servants .... 207 

XIII. Mines 225 

XIV. Billets 243 

XV. "A certain Man drew a Bow at a 

Venture" 273 

XVI. Wounded 286 

XVII. Conclusion 313 



VII 



Tim NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 



MAPS 

FACING PAGE 

I. Bethune and La Babsee, Neighbour- 
hood OF 9 

II. Fkicourt and Neighbourhood ... 97 

III. The Trenches near Fricourt . . . 103 



PREFACE 

"rr^HEN," said my friend, "what is this war 

I like? I ask you if it is this, or that; and 

you shake your head. But you will not 

satisfy me with negatives. I want to know the 

truth ; what is it like ? ' ' 

There was a long silence. 

"Express that silence; that is what we want 
to hear." 

"The mask of glory," I said, "has been strip- 
ped from the face of war. ' ' 

* ' And we are fighting the better for that, ' ' con- 
tinued my friend. 

' ' You see that ? " I exclaimed. ' ' But of course 
you do. We know it, and you at home know it. 
And you want to know the truth?" 

"Of course," was the reply. 

"I do not say that what you have read is not 
true," said I; "but I do say that I have read 
nothing that gives a complete or proportioned 
picture. I have not yet found a perfect simile 
for this war, but the nearest I can think of is that 
of a pack of cards. Life in this war is a series 
of events so utterly different and disconnected, 
that the effect upon the actor in the midst of 

IX 



X NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

them is like receiving a hand of cards from an 
invisible dealer. There are four suits in the 
pack. Spades represent the dullness, mud, weari- 
ness, and sordidness. Clubs stand for another 
side, the humour, the cheerfulness, the jollity, 
and good-fellowship. In diamonds I see the 
glitter of excitement and adventure. Hearts are 
a tragic suit of agony, horror, and death. And 
to each man the invisible dealer gives a succes- 
sion of cards; sometimes they seem all black; 
sometimes they are red and black alternately; 
and at times they come red, red, red ; and at the 
end is the ace of hearts. ' ' 

*'I understand," said my friend. "And now 
tell me your hand." 

"It was a long hand," I replied; "I think I 
had better try and write it down in a book. I 
have never written a book. I wonder how it 
would pan out? At first my hand was chiefly 
black with a sprinkling of diamonds ; later I re- 
ceived more diamonds, but the hearts began to 
come as well; at last the hearts seemed to be 
squeezing out the clubs and diamonds. There 
were always plenty of spades." 

There was another silence. 

"There was one phrase," I resumed, "in the 
daily communiques that used to strike us rather 
out there; it was, 'Nothing of importance to 
record on the rest of the front.' I believe that 
a hundred years hence this phrase will be re- 



PREFACE XI 

peated in the history books. There will be a 
passage like this : * Save for the gigantic effort 
of Germany to break through the French lines 
at Verdun, nothing of importance occurred on 
the western front between September, 1915, and 
the opening of the Somme offensive on the 1st of 
July, 1916.' And this will be believed, unless 
men have learnt to read history aright by then. 
For the river of history is full of waterfalls that 
attract the day excursionist — such as battles, 
and laws, and the deaths of kings ; whereas the 
spirit of the river is not in the waterfalls. There 
are men who were wounded in the Somm^e bat- 
tle, who had only seen a few weeks of war. I 
have yet to see a waterfall ; but I have learned 
something of the spirit of the deep river in eight 
months of 'nothing of importance.' " 

This, then, is the book that I have written. It 
is the spirit of the war as it came to me, first 
in big incoherent impressions, later as a more 
intelligible whole. Perhaps it will seem that the 
first chapters are somewhat light in tone and in- 
clined to gloss over the terrible side of War. 
But that is just what happens ; at first, the in- 
terest and adventure are paramount, and it is 
only after a time, only after all the novelty has 
worn away, that one gets the real proportion. If 
the first chapters do not bite deep, remember 
that this was my experience. This book does 
not claim to be always sensational or thrilling. 



XII NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

One claim only I make for it: from end to end 
it is the truth. 

The events recorded are real and true in every 
detail. I have nowhere exaggerated ; for in this 
war there is nothing more terrible than the 
truth. 

All the persons mentioned are also real, 
though I have thought it better to give them 
pseudonyms, 



9i 



"NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

CHAPTEE I 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS 

"/^>|OOD-BYE!" 
1 -J- '* Good-bye. Don't forget to send me 
^-^ that Hun helmet ! ' ' 
*' All right! Good-bye!" 

The train had long ago recovered from the 
shock of its initial jerk; a long steady grinding 
noise came up from the carriage wheels, as 
though they had recovered breath and were get- 
ting into their stride for Folkestone, regardless 
of the growing clatter of the South-Eastern 
rhythm; — if, indeed, so noble a word may be 
used for the noise made by the wheels as they 
passed over the rail- joints of this distinguished 
line. 

''Don't believe it's a good thing having one's 
people to see you off, ' ' said Terry, whose people 
had accompanied him in large numbers to Char- 
ing Cross. 



2 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

* ' They will come, though, ' ' remarked Crowley 
very wisely. 

*'I tried to persuade my people not to come," 
said I; ''but they think you like it, I suppose. 
I would certainly rather say good-bye at home, 
and have no one come to the station. " 

And so I started off my experience of ''the 
great adventure" with a "lie direct": but it 
does not weigh very heavily upon my conscience. 

Six of us sat in a first-class carriage on the 
morning of the 5th of October, 1915 : for months 
we had been together in a reserve battalion wait- 
ing to go out to the front, and now at last we had 
received marching orders, and were bound for 
Folkestone, and thence for France. For which 
battalion of our regiment any or all of us twelve 
oflBcers were destined, we had no knowledge 
whatever ; but even the most uncongenial pair of 
us would, I am sure, have preferred each 
other's company to that of complete strangers. 
I, at any rate, have never in my life felt more 
shy and self-conscious and full of stupid qualms : 
unless, indeed, it was on the occasion, ten months 
before, when I stood shaking in front of a 
platoon of twenty men! 

The last few days I had gone about feeling as 
though the news that I was going to the front 
were printed in large letters round my cap. I 
felt that people in the railway carriages, and in 
I'le streets, were looking at me with an electric 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 3 

interest; and the necessary (and unnecessary!) 
purchases, as well as the good-byes, were of the 
kind to make one feel placed upon a pedestal of 
importance! Now, in company with five other 
officers in like predicament, I felt already that I 
had climbed down a step from that pedestal ; in 
fact, the whole experience of the first few days 
was one of a steady reduction from all-impor- 
tance to complete insignificance ! 

As soon as we had recovered from the silence 
that followed my remarks upon the disadvan- 
tages of prolonged valedictions, we commenced 
a critical survey of our various properties and 
accoutrements. Revolvers leapt from brand 
new holsters ; feet were held up to show the ideal 
trench-nails ; flash lamps and torches, compasses, 
map-cases, pocket medicine-cases, all were 
shown with an easy confidence of manner that 
screened a sinking dread of disapprobation. The 
prismatic compass was regarded rather as a joke 
by some of us; its use in trench warfare was a 
doubtful quantity; yet there were some of us 
who in the depths of our martial wisdom were 
half expecting that the Battle of Loos was the 
prelude of an autumn campaign of open-coun- 
try warfare. There was only one man whose 
word we took for law in anything, and that was 
Barrett. He had spent five days in the trenches 
last December; he had then received his com- 
mission in our battalion. He was the **man 



4 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

from the front. ' ' And I noticed with secret mis- 
givings that he had not removed the badges of 
rank from his arm, or sewed his two stars upon 
his shoulder-straps; he had not removed his 
bright buttons, and substituted for them leather 
ones such as are worn on golfing-jackets ; and in 
his valise, he told us, he had his Sam Browne 
belt. 

"But you never wear Sum Brownes out 
there," I said: "all officers now dress as much 
as possible like the men." 

That was so, we were informed; but officers 
used to wear them in billets, when they were 
out of the firing-line. 

"Well," said Crowley, "we could get them 
sent out, I expect." 

"Yes," said I; "I expect they would arrive 
safely. ' ' 

But this infantile conversation is not worthy 
of record ! Suffice to say we knew nothing about 
war, and were just beginning to learn that fact ! 

The first check to our enthusiasm was at 
Folkestone. We reported to the railway trans- 
port officer, whom we then regarded as a little 
demi-god; he told us to report in time for the 
boat at a certain hour. This we did, signed our 
names with a feeling of doing some awful and 
irrevocable deed, and then were told to wait an- 
other three hours : there was no room for us on 
this boat ! We retired to an hotel with a feeling 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 5 

that perhaps after all there was no such imperi- 
ous shouting for our help over in France, such 
as we had all, I think (save only Barrett, who 
was cynical and pessimistic!) secretly imagined. 

Darkness came ere we started. The crossing 
did not seem long, and I stood up on deck with 
Barrett most of the time. Two destroyers fol- 
lowed a little astern, one on either side; and 
there were lights right across the Channel. We 
were picked out by searchlights more than once, 
although all lights were forbidden on board. I 
felt that I was now fair game for the Germans ; 
and it was exciting to think that they would give 
anything to sink me ! At last I was in for "the 
great adventure.'* 

At Boulogne we had to wait a long time on a 
dismal quay and in a drizzling rain to interview 
an irritated and sleepy railway transport officer. 
After a long, long queue had been safely nego- 
tiated we were given tickets to ; and then 

again we had to wait quite an hour on the plat- 
form. Some of our party were excited at their 
first visit to a foreign soil ; but their enthusiasm 
abated when at the buffet they were charged ex- 
orbitant prices and their English money was re- 
jected as **dam fool money." 

Then there came a long jerky journey through 
the night in a crowded carriage. (As I am out 
for confessions, I will here state that I did not 
think this could be an ordinary passenger train, 



6 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

and I wondered vaguely who these men and 
women were who got in and out of other car- 
riages!) At :fitaples there was a still longer 
wait, and a still longer queue; but, fortunately, 
my signature had not lengthened. I remember 
sitting tired and dazed on the top of a valise, and 
asking Barrett what the time was. 

"Three forty-five!" 

**What a time to arrive!" I replied. But in 
war three forty-five is as good a time as any 
other, I was soon to discover. 

We walked to a camp a mile distant from the 
station; our arrival seemed quite unlooked for, 
and a quartermaster-sergeant had to be pro- 
cured, by the officer who was our guide, in or- 
der to gain access to the tent that contained the 
blanket stores. Wearily, at close on five o^clock, 
we fell asleep on the boarded bottom of a bell- 
tent. 

It must have been about 10 a. m. on the 6th 
when we turned out and found ourselves in a 
sandy country; behind us was a small ridge, 
crowned by a belt of fir trees ; the sun was well 
up and shone warm on the face as we washed 
and shaved in the open. The feeling of camp 
was exhilarating, and I was in good spirits. 

But two blows immediately damped my ardour 
most effectively. When I learned that I was 
posted to our first battalion, and I alone of all 
of us twelve, the thought of my arrival among 



FIRST IMPEESSIONS 7 

the regulars, with no experience, and not even 
an acquaintance, far less a friend, was distinct- 
ly chilling ! To add to my disconfitnre there be- 
fell a second misfortune : my valise was nowhere 
to be seen ! 

Indeed, the rest of the day was chiefly oc- 
cupied in searching for my valise, but to no pur- 
pose whatever. I did not see it until ten days 
later, when by some miracle it appeared again ! 
I can hardly convey the sense of depression 
these two facts cast over me the next few days ; 
the interest and novelty of my experiences made 
me forget for short periods, but always there 
would return the thought of my arrival alone 
into a line regiment, and with the humiliating 
necessity of borrowing at once. Unknown and 
inexperienced I could not help being; but as a 
fool who lost all his property the first day, I 
should not cut a brilliant figure! 

We obtained breakfast at an estaminet by the 
station; omelettes, rolls and butter, and cafe 
noir. 1 bought a French newspaper, and thought 
how finely my French would improve under this 
daily necessity ; but I soon found that one could 
get the Paris edition of the Daily Mail, and my 
French is still as sketchy as ever ! I remember 
watching the French children and the French 
women at the doors of the houses, and wonder- 
ing what they thought of this war on their own 



8 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

soil ; I knew that the wild enthusiasms of a year 
ago had died down ; I did not expect the shouting 
and singing, the souvenir-hunting, and the gen- 
erous impulses that greeted our troops a year 
ago ; but I felt so vividly myself the fact that be- 
tween me and the Germans lay only a living wall 
of my own countrymen, that I could not help 
thinking these urchins and women must feel it 
too ! The very way in which they swept the door- 
steps seemed to me worth noting at the moment. 

In the course of my wild peregrinations over 
the camp in search of my valise, I came upon a 
group of Tommies undergoing instruction in the 
machine-gun. Arrested by a familiar voice, I 
recognised as instructor a man I had known very 
well at Cambridge! He recognised me at the 
same moment, and in a few seconds we parted, 
after an invitation from him to dinner that 
evening; he was on "lines of communication" 
work, he told me. 

Sitting in his tent after Mess, I was amazed at 
the apparent permanence of his abode ; shelves, 
made out of boxes ; novels, an army list, maga- 
zines, maps; bed, washstand, candlesticks, a 
chair ; baccy, and whisky and soda ! It was all so 
snug and comfortable. I was soon to find my- 
self accumulating a very similar collection in 
billets six miles behind the firing-line, and taking 
most of it into the trenches ! I remember being 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS 9 

impressed by the statement that the cannonade 
had been heard day after day since the 25th, and 
still more impressed by references to ''the plans 
of the Staff!" 

I left Etaples early on the morning of the 7th, 
after receiving instructions, and a railway war- 
rant for ' ' Chocques, ' ' from a one-armed major 
of the Gordons. Of our original twelve only 
Terry and Crowley remained with me; with a 
young Scot, we had a grey-upholstered first-class 
carriage to ourselves. 

In the train I conmienced my first letter home ; 
and I should here like to state that the reason 
for the inclusion in these first chapters of a good 
many extracts from letters is that they do really 
represent my first vague, rather disconnected, 
impressions, and are therefore truer than any 
more coherent account I might now give. First 
impressions of people, houses, places, are al- 
ways interesting; I hope that the reader will not 
find these without interest, even though he may 
find them at times lacking in style. 

" I am now in the train. We are passing level- 
crossings guarded by horn-blowing women ; the 
train is strolling leisurely along over grass- 
grown tracks, and stopping at platformless sta- 
tions. It is very hot. At midday I shall be about 
ten miles from the firing-line, and I expect the 
cannonade will be pretty audible. I feel strange- 
ly indifferent to things now, though I have the 



10 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

feeling that all this will be stamped indelibly on 
my memory." How well I remember the thrill 
of excitement when I found the name Chocqnes 
on my map, quite close to the firing-line ! And as 
we got nearer, and saw R.A.M.C. and cavalry 
camps, and talked to Tommies guarding the line, 
saw aeroplanes, and yes ! a captive balloon, ex- 
citement grew still greater ! At last we reached 
Chocques, and the railway transport officer calm- 
ly informed us that we had another four miles 
to go. He brilliantly suggested walking. But an 
A.S.C. lorry was there, and in we climbed, only 
to be ejected by the corporal! Eventually we 
tramped to Bethune with very full packs in a hot 
sun. 

Walking gave us opportunity for observation ; 
and that road was worth seeing to those who had 
not seen it before. There were convoys of A.S.C. 
lorries, drawn up (or "parked") in twenties or 
thirties alongside the road, each with its mystical 
marking, a scarlet shell, a green shamrock, etc.. 
painted on its side; Eed Cross ambulances 
passed, impelling one to turn back and look in 
them, sometimes containing stretcher-cases (feet 
only visible), or sitting cases with bandaged 
head or arm in sling. Then there were motor- 
cars with Staff officers; motor-cars with youth- 
ful officers in immaculate Sam Brownes and 
''slacks"; and as we drew nearer Bethune, we 
saw canteens with Tommies standing and loung- 



FIEST IMPEESSIONS 11 

ing outside, small squads of men, English notices, 
and boards with painted inscriptions. 



such as 



BILLETS. 

Officers— 2 
Men— 30 



or 



H.Q. 
117th Inf. Bde. 



and in the distance loomed the square tower of 
the cathedral, which I thought then to be a de- 
capitated spire. 

And so we came into the bustle of a French 
city. 

I had never heard of Bethune before. As the 
crow flies it is about five to six miles from the 
front trenches. The shops were doing a roaring 
trade, and I was amazed to see chemists flaunt- 
ing auto-strop razors, stationers offering ' * Tom- 
my's writing-pad," and tailors showing English 
officers' uniforms in their windows, besides all 
the goods of a large and populous town. We 
were very hungry and tired, and fate directed us 
to the famous tea-shop, where, at dainty tables, 
amid crowds of officers, we obtained an English 
tea ! I was astounded ; so were we all. To think 
that I had treasured a toothbrush as a thing that 
I might not be able to replace for months ! Here 
was everything to hand. Were we really within 
six miles of the Germans ? Yet officers were dis- 
cussing *Hhe hot time we had yesterday" ; while 
"we only came out this morning," or ''they 



12 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

whizz-banged us pretty badly last night," were 
remarks from officers redolent of bath and the 
hairdresser ! Buttons brilliantly polished, boots 
shining like advertisements, swagger-canes, and 
immaculate collars, gave the strangest first im- 
pression of "active service" to us, with our 
leather equipment, packs, leather buttons, and 
trench boots ! 

''Old Barrett was right about the Sam 
Brownes," I said to Terry, vainly trying to 
look at my ease. 

"Let's look at your map," he answered. Then, 
after a moment: 

"Oh, we're not far from the La Bassee Canal. 
I've heard of that often enough!" 

"So have I," I replied. "Is La Bassee ours 
or theirs?" 

' ' Ours, of course , ' ' but he borrowed the map 
again to make sure ! 

Eefreshed, but feeling strangely "out" of 
everything, we eventually found our way to the 
town major. Here my letter continues : 

"I was told an orderly was coming in the 
evening to conduct me to the trenches, to my 
battalion ! Suddenly, however, we were told to 
go off — seven of us in the same division — to our 
brigades in a motor-lorry. So we are packed off. 
I said good-bye to Crowley and Terry. This was 
about 7 p.m. We went rattling along till within 
a short distance of our front trenches. There 



FIEST IMPRESSIONS 18 

was a lot of cannonading going on around and 
behind us, and star-shells bursting continuously, 
with Crystal-Palace-firework pops; we could 
hear rifles cracking, too. At length we got to 
where the lorry could go no further, and we 
halted for a long time at a place where the houses 
were all ruins and the roofs like spiders' webs, 
with the white glare of the shells silhouetting 
them against the sky. The houses had been 
shelled yesterday, but last night no shells were 
coming our way at all. My feelings were exactly 
like they are in a storm — the nearer and bigger 
the flashes and bangs the more I hoped the next 
would be really big and really near. ' ' Of course, 
all this cannonade was our artillery ; at the time 
we were quite muddled up as to what it all was ! 
The snarling bangs were the 18-pounders quite 
close to us, about one thousand yards behind our 
front line; the cracking bullets were spent bul- 
lets, though it sounded to us as if they were from 
a trench about twenty yards in front of us! 
Nothing is more confusing at first than the dif- 
ferent sounds of the different guns. I think sev- 
eral of us would have been ready to say we had 
been under shell-fire that night! The ''star- 
shells" should be more accurately described as 
''flares" or "rockets." But to continue my 
letter : 

"Well, the next few hours were a strange mix- 
ture of sensations. We could nowhere find our 



14 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

brigades, and after ten hours in the lorry we 
landed here at a place sixteen miles back from 
the firing-line ; here ourdivision had been located 
by a signaller, whom we had consulted when we 
stopped by the cross-roads! We were left by 
the lorry at 5 A.M. at a field ambulance station 
'close to H.Q.,' where we slept wearily till 8, to 
awake and find ourselves miles from our divis- 
ion, which is really, I believe, quite near where 
we had been in the firing-line ! Now we are sit- 
ting in a big old chateau awaiting a telephone 
message ; we are in a dining-room, walls peeling, 
and arm-chairs reduced to legless deformities! 
It is a jolly day : sun, and the smell of autumn." 
I shall not forget that long ride. I was at the 
back, and could see out ; innumerable villages we 
passed; innumerable mistakes we made; innu- 
merable stops, innumerable enquiries! But al- 
ways there was the throbbing engine while we 
halted, and the bump and rattle as we plunged 
through the night. Eight officers and seven 
valises, I think we were; one or two were re- 
duced to grumbling ; several were asleep ; a few, 
like myself, were awake, but all absolutely tired 
out. It was too uncomfortable to rest, cramped 
up among all sorts of bulky valises and sprawl- 
ing limbs ! Once, at about four o 'clock, we halted 
at a house with a light in the window, and found 
a miner just going off to work. An old woman 
brewed some very black coffee, and we hungrily 



FIEST IMPRESSIONS 15 

devoured bits of bread and butter, coffee, and 
cognac; while the old woman, fat and smiling, 
gabbled incessantly at us ! A strange, weird pic- 
ture we must have made, some of us in kilts and 
bonnets, standing half-awake in the flickering 
candle-light. 

We were at the chateau all the morning. * * The 
R.A.M.C. fellows were very decent to us ; gave 
us breakfast (eggs, bread and butter, and tinned 
jam) and also lunch (bully-beef, cheese, bread 
and butter, and beer). These were eaten off the 
dining-room table in style. I explored the cha- 
teau during the morning; just a big, ordinary 
empty house inside ; outside, it is white plaster, 
with steep slate roofs, and a few ornamental tur- 
rets. The garden is mostly taken up with lines 
of picketed horses ; outside the orchards and en- 
closures the country is bare and flat ; it is a min- 
ing district, and pyramids of slag stand up all 
over the plain." 

I cannot do better than continue quoting from 
these first letters of mine ; of course, I did not 
mention places by name : 

''Well, at 2 P.M. the same old lorry and cor- 
poral turned up and took us back to Bethune. I 
gather he got considerable 'strafing' for last 
night's performance, although I think he was not 
given clear enough instructions. Then, with 
seven other officers, we were sent off again in 
daylight, and dropped by twos and threes at our 



16 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

various Brigade Headquarters. Our 'Brigade 
H.Q. ' was in one of the few houses left standing. 
Here I reported, and was told that an orderly 
would take me to my battalion transport. In 
half an hour the orderly arrived on a bicycle, and 
by 6 P.M. I was only half a mile from our 
transport. We were walking along, when sud- 
denly there was a scream like a rocket, followed 
by a big bang, and the sound of splinters falling 
all about. I expected to see people jump into 
ditches; but they stood calmly in the street, 
women and all, and watched, while several shells 
(whizz-bangs, I believe)" — No, dear innocence, - 
HiGH-ExpLosivE Shrapnel — ''burst just near 
the road about a hundred yards ahead. We were 
four miles back from the firing-line. It was just 
the 'evening hate,' I expect. It didn't last long. 
Just near us was one of our own batteries firing 
intermittently. ' ' 

This was my first experience of being under 
fire. I hadn't the least idea what to do. The 
textbooks, I believe, said "Throw yourself on 
the ground. ' ' I therefore looked at my orderly ; 
but he was ducking behind his bicycle, which I 
am sure is not recommended by any manual of 
military training! I ducked behind nothing, 
copying him. This all took place in the middle 
of the road. But when I saw women opening 
the doors of their houses and standing calmly 
looking at the shells, ducking seemed out of the 



FIRST IMPBESSIONS 17 

queation; so we both stood and watched the 
bursting shells. Then the salvo ceased, and I, 
thinking I must show some sort of a lead, sug- 
gested that we should proceed. Bnt my orderly, 
wiser by experience, suggested waiting to see if 
another salvo were forthcoming. After ten min- 
utes, however, it was clear that the Germans had 
finished, and we resumed our journey in peace. 

My letter continues : **At the transport I had 
a very comfortable billet. The quartermaster 
and two other new officers and myself had sup- 
per in an upstairs room. The quartermaster 
seemed very pessimistic, and told us a lot about 
our losses. We turned in at ten o'clock, and I 
slept well. It was 'very quiet'; that is to say, 
only intermittent bangs such as have continued 
ever since the beginning of the war, and will 
continue to the end thereof! 

"October 9th. This morning a cart took us at 
nine o 'clock to within about a mile of the firing- 
line, putting us down at the comer of a street 

that has been renamed 'H Street.' The 

country was dead flat ; the houses everywhere in. 
ruins, though some were untouched and still in- 
habited. Thence an orderly conducted us to H. 
Q., where we reported to the Adjutant and the 
CO. (who is quite young by the way) ; they were 
in the ground-floor room of a house, to which 

we came all the way from H Street along a 

communication trench about seven feet deep. 



18 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

These trenches were originally dug by the 
French, I believe. I was told I was posted to 
*D' Company, so another orderly took me back 

practically to H Street, which must be six 

or seven hundred yards behind the firing-line. 
*D' is in reserve; I am attached to it for the 
present. There are two other officers in it, 
Davidson and Symons. Both have only just 
joined." 

So at last I was fairly lodged in my battalion. 
I had been directed, dumped, shaken, and car- 
ried, in a kindly, yet to me most amazingly hap- 
hazardly, way to my destination, and there I 
found myself quite unexpected, but immediately 
attached somewhere until I should sort myself 
out a little and find my feet. I had a servant 
called Smith. In the afternoon I went with 
Davidson to supervise a working party, which 
was engaged in paving a communication trench 
with tiles from the neighbouring houses. In the 
evening I set to and wrote letters. I will close 
this chapter with yet one more quotation : 

* ' Now I am in the ground-room of one of the 

few standing houses in H Street. Next door 

is a big ':ficole des filles,' which I am quite sur- 
prised to find empty ! Really the way the people 
go about their work here is amazing. Still, I 
suppose to carry on a girls' school half a mile 
from the Boche is just beyond the capacity of 
even their indifference! IVe already got quite 



FIEST IMPEESSIONS 19 

used to the noise. There are two guns just about 
forty yards away, that keep on firing with a ter- 
rific bang ! I can see the flashes just behind me. 
I think the noise would worry you, if you heard 
these blaring bangs at the end of the back gar- 
den, which is just about the distance this battery 
is from me ! We are messing here in this room ; 
half a table has been propped us, and three 
chairs discovered and patched up for us. All 
the windows facing the enemy have been blocked 
up with sand-bags. I sleep here to-night. If the 
house is shelled, I shall flee to the dug-out twenty 
yards away. Orders have not yet come, but I be- 
lieve we go back to billets to-morrow. 

A free issue of 'Glory Boys' cigarettes has 
just arrived: two packets for each officer and 
man. Please don't forget to send my Sana 
Browne belt," 



CHAPTER II 
CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 

THROUGHOUT October and November 
our battalion was in the firing-line. This 
meant that we spent life in an everlasting 
alternation between the trenches and our billets 
behind, just far enough behind, that is, to be out 
of the range of the light artillery; always, 
though, liable to be called suddenly into the fir- 
ing-line, and never out of the atmosphere of the 
trenches. Always before us was dangled a 
promised ''rest," and always it was being post- 
poned. Rumours were spread, dissected, 
laughed at, and eventually treated with bored 
incredulity. The battalion had had no rest, I 
believe, since May. Men, and especially N.C.O.'s, 
who had been out since October, 1914, were tired 
out in body and spirit. 

With the officers and certain new drafts of 
men, it was different. We came out enthusiastic 
and keen. On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed 
those first two months. I am surprised now to 
to see how much detail I wrote in my letters 
home. Everything was fresh, everything new 

20 



CUINCHY AND OIVENCHY 21 

and interesting. And things were on the whole 
very quiet. We had a few casualities, but un- 
derwent no serious bombardment. And, most 
important to us, of course, we had no casualties 
among the officers. 

Givenchy and Cuinchy are two small villages, 
north and south, respectively, of the La Bassee 
Canal, which runs almost due east and west be- 
tween La Bassee and Bethune. Givenchy stands 
on a slight rise in the flattest of flat countries. 
A church tower of red brick must have been the 
most noticeable feature as one walked in pre- 
war days from the suburbs of Bethune along the 
La Bassee road. Cuinchy is a village strag- 
gling along a road. Both are as completely re- 
duced to ruins as villages can be, the firing-line 
running just east of them. Between them flows 
the great sluggish canal. 

During an afternoon in Bethune one could do 
all the shopping one required, and get a hair- 
cut and shampoo as well. Expensive cocktails 
were obtainable at the local bar ; there was also 
a famous teashop. We were billeted in one of 
the small villages around. Sometimes we only 
stayed one night at a billet : there was always 
change, always movement. Sometimes I got a 
bed ; often I did not ; but a valise is comfortable 
enough, when once its tricks are mastered. Any- 
how it is ''billets" and not "trenches," that is 
the point; a continuous night's rest in pyjamas. 



22 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

the facilities of a bath, very often a free after- 
noon and evening, and no equipment and re- 
volver to carry night and day ! It was in billets 
the following letters were written, which are 
really the best description of my life at this 
period. 

''19th October, 1915. Our battalion went 
into the trenches on the 14th and came out on 
the 17th. Our company, 'B,' was in support. 
The front line was about 300 yards ahead, and 
we held the second line, everything prepared to 
meet an attack in case the enemy broke through 
the first line. Halfway between our first and 
second lines was a kind of redoubt, to be held 
at all costs. Here you are: 




^^J^-pO-RT TREMCK 



The arrows indicate the direction in which the fire-trenche« 
point. 



The line here forms a big salient, so that we 
often used to get spent bullets dropping into 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 23 

the redoubt, from right behind it, it seemed. 
HwG, another drawing will show what I mean : 




The dotted line is the German front trench. 
If the enemy A fires at the English B, the bullet 
will go on and fall at about C, who is facing in 
the direction of the arrow, in the support line. 
So C has to look out for enfilading spent bullets. 

For three days and nights I was in command 
of this redoubt, isolated, and ready with stores, 
ammunition, water, barbed wire and pickets, 
bombs, and tools, to hold out a little siege for 
several days if necessary. I used to leave it to 
get meals at Company H.Q. in the support line ; 
otherwise, I had always to be there, ready for 
instant action. No one used to get more than 
two or three hours ' consecutive sleep, and I could 
never take off boots, equipment, or revolver. 

Here is a typical scene in the redoubt. 

Scene. A dug-out, 6'X4'X4'; smell, earthy. 

Time, 2.30 A. M. 

I awake and listen. Deathly stillness. 
A voice. 'What's the time, kid?' 

Another voice. 'Dunno. About 2 o'clock, I 
reckon. ' 



24 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

'Past that.' 

Long silence. 

'Rum job, this, ain't it kid?' 

'Why?' 

'Well, I reckon if the Huns were coming 

over, we'd know it long afore they got 'ere. I 
reckon we'd hear the boys in front firing.' 

Long pause. 

'I dunno. 'Spose there's some sense in it, 
else we wouldn't be 'ere.' 

Silence. 

' cold on this fire step. Guess it's 

time they relieved us.' 

Long silence. 

'Don't them flares look funny in the mistr 

'Yus, I guess old Fritz uses some of them 
every night. Hullo, there they go again. 'Ear 
that machine-gun?' 

Long pause, during which machine-guns pop, 
and snipers snipe merrily, and flares light up 
the sky. Trench-mortars begin, behind us 
'whizz-sh-sh-sh-h-h' — silence — 'thud.' Then the 
Germans reply, sending two or three over which 
thud harmlessly behind. The invisible sentries 
have now become clearly visible to me as I look 
out of my dug-out. Two of them are about ten 
yards apart standing on the fire-platform. 
Theirs is the above dialogue. 

With a sudden thud, a trench-mortar shell 
drops fifteen yards behind us. 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 25 

'Hullo, Fritz is getting the wind up.' 

'Getting the wind up' is slang for getting 
nervous : this stolid comment from a sentry is 
typical 0.^ the attitude adopted towards 'Fritz' 
(the German) when he starts shelling or finding. 
He is supposed to be a bit jumpy! It seems 
hard to realize that Fritz is really trying to kill 
these sentries: the whole thing seems a weird, 
strange play. 

I make an effort, and crawl out of the dug- 
out. The 'strafing' has died down. Only oc- 
casional flares climb up from the German lines, 
and 'pop,' 'pop' in the morning mist. I go 
round the sentries, standing up by them and 
looking over the parapet. It is cold and raw, 
and the sentries are looking forward to the next 
relief. Ah ! there is the corporal on trench duty 
coming. I can hear him routing out the snoring 
relief. 

*Ping-g-g-g' goes a stray bullet singing by — 
a ricochet by its sound. 

'A near one, sir.' 

'Yes, Evans. Safer in the front line.' 

*I guess it is, sir.' 

Then the sentries changed. I turn back again 
to my dug-out. Sleeping with revolvers and 
equipment requires some care of position. 

' Half -past four, sir, ' comes after a pause and 
some sleep. 

Out I get, and everybody 'stands to' arms 



26 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

for an hour, each man taking up the position 
allotted to him along the fire-platform. Gradu- 
ally it gets light. Some brick-stacks grow out 
of the mist in front, and ruined cottages loom 
up in the rear, and what was a church. The 
fire-platform being here pretty high, one can 
look back over the parados over bare flat coun- 
try, cut up by trenches and run to waste ter- 
ribly. ' Parados, ' by the way, is the name given 
to the back of a trench; here is a drawing in 
section : 







A. Bottom of trench. 

B, Fire-step. 

At 5:30 'Stand down and clean rifles' is the 
order given, and the cleaning commences — a 
process as oft-repeated as 'washing up' in civil- 
ized lands, and as monotonous and unsatisfac- 
tory, for a few hours later the rifles are a bit 
rusty and muddy again, and need another in- 
gpection. 

7:30. 'Tell Sergeant Summers I*m going 
down to Company Headquarters.' 

'Very good, sir.' Then I take a long mazy 
journey down the communication trench, which 



CUINCHY AND aiVENCHY 27 

is six feet deep at least, and mostly paved with 
bricks from a neighbouring brick-field. There 
are an amazing lot of mice about the trenches, 
and they fall in and can't get out. Most of them 
get squashed. Frogs too, which make a green 
and worse mess than the mice. Our CO. al- 
ways stops and throws a frog out if he meets 
one. Tommy, needless to say, is not so senti- 
mental. These trenches have been built a long 
time, and grass-stalks, dried scabious, and 
plantain-stalks grow over the edges, which must 

make them very invisible from above. 'H 

Street,' 'L Laae,' 'C Eoad,' 'P ■ 

Lane' are traversed, and so into S Street,* 

where, in the cellar of what was once a house, 
are two hungry officers already started on bacon 
and eggs, coffee (with condensed milk), and 
bread and tinned jam. We are lucky with three 
chairs and a table. A newspaper makes an ad- 
mirable tablecloth, and a bottle a good candle- 
stick, and there is room in a cellar to stand up. 
Breakfast done, a shave is manipulated. Mead- 
ows, my servant, getting ready my tackle and 
producing a mug of hot water. 

9.30 finds me back in the redoubt and starting 
a * working party' on repairing a communica- 
tion trench and generally improving the 
trenches. Working parties are unpopular; 
Tommy does not believe in improving trenches 
he may never see again. And so the day goes 



28 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

on. Sentries change and take their place, sit- 
ting gazing into a scrap of mirror. Ration par- 
ties come up with dixies carried on wooden pick- 
ets, and the pioneer generally cleans up, sprink- 
ling chloride of lime about in white showers, 
which seems as plentiful as the sand of the sea- 
shore, and the odour of which clings to the 
trenches, as the smell of seaweed does to the 
beach. 



The redoubt was in the Cuinchy trenches, and 
that old cellar was really a delightful head- 
quarters. The first time we were in it we found 
a cat there ; on the second occasion the same cat 
appeared with three lusty kittens ! These used 
to keep the place clear of rats and get sat on 
every half-hour or so. I soon learned to get 
used to smoke; on one occasion the smoke from 
our brazier became so thick that Gray, the cook, 
threatened to resign. For all the smoke gath- 
ers at the top of a dug-out and seems impossibly 
suffocating to anyone first entering; yet it is 
often practically clear two or three feet from 
the ground, so that when lying or sitting one 
does not notice the smoke at all; but a new- 
comer gets his eyes so stung that it seems im- 
possible that anyone can live in the dug-out at 
all ! ( Gray, by the way, was not allowed to re- 
sign. ) ' ' 



CUINCHY AND OIVENCHY 29 

Here follows a letter describing the front 
trenches at Givenchy : 

* * 7th November. On the 29th we marched off 
at 9 A.M. and halted at 11 for dinner. Luckily it 
was fine, and the piled arms, the steaming dixies., 
and the groups of men sitting about eating and 
smoking formed a pleasant sight. Our grub 
was put by mistake on the mess-cart which went 
straight on to the trenches! Edwards, how- 
ever, our Company mess-president, came up to 
the scratch with bread, butter, and eggs. Tea 
was easily procured from the cookers. Then 
off we went to our H.Q. There we got down 
into the communication trench, and in single 
file were taken by guides into our part of the 
trenches: these guides were sent by the bat- 
talion we were relieving. I told you that all the 
trenches have names (which are painted on 
boards hung up at the trench comers). The 
first thing done was to post sentries along our 
company front : until this was done the outgo- 
ing battalion could not 'out-go.' Each man has 
his firing position allotted to him, and he al- 
ways occupies it at ' stand to ' and ' stand down. ' 
We were three days and three nights in the 
trenches. Each officer was on duty for eight 
hours, during which he was responsible for a 
sector of firing-line and must be actually in the 
front trench. My watch was 12 to 4 A.M. and 
P.M. Work that out with 'stand to' in the mom- 



30 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

ing and also in the evening and you will see that 
consecutive sleep is not easy! On paper 6-12 
(midnight) looks good; but then, remember, din- 
ner at 7 or 7.30 according to the fire, while you 
may have to turn out at any time if you are 
being shelled at all. For instance, one night I 
was just turning in early at 7, when a mine 
went up on our right, and shelling and general 
'strafing' kept me out till 9.30, after which I 
couldn't sleep! So at midnight I was tired when 
I started my four hours, turned in at 4, out 
again for 'stand to,' 8 breakfast, 9 rifle in- 
spection, and so it goes on! That is why you 
can apprecite billets, and bed from 9 to 7 if 
you want it. 

Imagine a cold November night — ^with a 
ground fog. What bliss to be roused from a 
snug dug-out at midnight, and patrol the Com- 
pany's line for four interminable hours. It is 
deathly quiet. Has the war stopped? I stand 
up on the fire-step beside the sentry and try to 
see through the fog. 'Pip-pip-pip-pip-pip' goes 
a machine-gun. So the war's still on. 

'Coldr I ask a sentry. 'Only me feet, sir.' 
'Why don't you stamp your feet, then?' This 
being equivalent to an order. Tommy stamps 
feebly a few times until made to do so ener- 
getically. Unless you make him stamp, he will 
not stamp ; would infinitely prefer to let his feet 
get cold as ice. Of course, when you have gone 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 31 

into the next bay, he immediately stops. Still, 
that is Tommy. 

I gaze across into No Man's Land. I can just 
see our wire, and in front a collection of old tins 
— bully tins, jam tins, butter tins — paper, old 
bits of equipment. Other regiments always 
leave places so untidy. You clean up, but when 
you come into trenches you find the other fel- 
lows have left things about. You work hard re- 
pairing the trenches: the relieving regiment, 
you find on your return, has done 'damn all,' 
which is military slang for 'nothing.' And all 
other regiments, it seems, have the same com- 
plaint. 

'Swish,' A German flare rocket lights up 
everything. You can see our trenches all along. 
Everything is as clear as day. You feel as con- 
spicuous as a cromlech on a hill. But the 
enemy can't see you, fog or no fog, if you only 
keep still. The light has fallen on the parapet 
this time, and lies sizzling on the sand-bags. 
A flicker, and it is gone; and in the fog you 
see black blobs, the size and shape of the daz- 
zling light you've just been staring at. 

'Crack — ^plop.' 'Crack — plop.' A couple of 
bullets bury themselves in the sand-bags, or else 
with a long-drawn 'ping' go singing over the 
top. Why the sentries never get hit seems ex- 
traordinary. I suppose a mathematician would 
by combination and permutation tell you the 



32 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

chances against bullets aimed ' at a venture ' hit- 
ting sentries exposing one-fourth of their per- 
sons at a given elevation at so many paces in- 
terval. Personally I won't try, as my whole ob- 
ject is to keep awake till four o'clock. And then 
I shall be too sleepy. Only remember, it is night 
and the sentries are invisible. 

' Tap — tap — tap. ' * There 's a wiring party out, 
sir. I 've heard 'em these last five minutes. ' Un- 
doubtedly there are a few men out in No Man's 
Land, repairing their wire. I tell the sentries 
near to look out and be ready to fire, and then 
I sent off a 'Very' flare, fired by a thick cart- 
ridge from a thick-barrelled brass pistol. It 
makes a good row, and has a fair kick, so it is 
best to rest the butt on the parapet and hold it 
at arm's length. Even so it leaves your ears 
singing for hours. The first shot was a failure 
— only a miserable rocket tail which failed to 
burst. The second was a magnificent shot. It 
burst beautifully, and fell right behind the party, 
two Germans, and silhouetted them, falling and 
burning still incandescent on the ground behind. 
A volley of fire followed from our awaiting 
sentries. I could not see if the party were hit ; 
most of the shots were nred after the light had 
died out. Anyhow, the working party stopped. 
The two figures stood quite motionless while 
the flare burned. 

The Germans opposite us were very lively. 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 33 

One could often hear them whistling, and one 
night they were shouting to one another like any- 
thing. They were Saxons, who are always at 
that game. No one knows exactly what it means. 
It was quite cold, almost frosty, and the sound 
came across the 100 yards or so of No Man's 
Land with a strange clearness in the night air. 
The voices seemed unnaturally near, like voices 
on the water heard from a cliff. 'Tommee — 
Tommee. Allemands bon — Engleesh bon.' 'We 
hate ze Kron-prmz.^ (I can hear now the nasal 
twang with which the 'Kron' was emphasized.) 

'D the Kaiser.' 'Deutschland unter AUes.' 

I could hear these shouts most distinctly: the 
same sentences were repeated again and again. 
They shouted to one another from one part of 
the line to another, generally preceding each 
sentence by 'Kamerad.' Often you heard loud 
hearty laughter. As ^ Comic Cuts' (the name 
given to the daily Intelligence Eeports) sagely 
remarked, 'Either this means that there is a 
spirit of dissatisfaction among the Saxons, or 
it is a ruse to try and catch us unawares, or it 
is mere foolery.' Wisdom in high places! 

Really it was intensely interesting. 'Come 
over,' shouted Tommy. 'We — are — not — com- 
ing — over,' came back. Loud clapping and 
laughter followed remarks like 'We hate ze 
jK"ro^prinz. ' Then they would yodel and sing 
like anything. Tommy replied with 'Tipperary.* 



34 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

They sang, ^ God save the King, ' or rather their 
German equivalent of it, to the familiar tune. 
Then, 'Abide with us' rose into the night air and 
starlight. This went on for an hour and a half ; 
though almost any night you can hear them 
shout something, and give a yodel — 



It is the strangest thing I have ever experi- 
enced. The authorities now try and stop our 
fellows answering. The entente of last Christ- 
mas is not to be repeated! One of the officers 
in our battalion has shown me several German 
signatures on his paybook (he was in the ranks 
then), given in friendly exchange in the middle 
of No Man's Land last Christmas Day. 

I have had my baptism of mud now. It tires 
me to think of it, and I have not the spirit to 
write fully about it ! The second time we were 
in these trenches the mud was two feet deep. 
Even our Company Headquarters, a cellar, was 
covered with mud and slime. Paradoses and 
communication trenches had fallen in, and the 
going was terrible. The sticky mud yoicked 
one's boots off nearly, and it felt as if one's foot 
would be broken in extricating it. We all wore 
gum-boots, of blue-black rubber, that come right 
up to the waist like fishermen's waders. But 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 



35 



the mud is everywhere, and we get our arms 
all plastered with it as we literally ' ' reel to and 
fro" along the trench, every now and again 
steadying ourselves against slimy sand-bags. 
One or two men actually got stuck, and had to 
to be helped out with spades; one fellow lost 
heart and left one of his gum-boots stuck in 
the mud, and turned up in my platoon in a stock- 
inged foot, of course plastered thick with clay! 
We worked day and night. Gradually the prob- 
lem is being tackled. Trench boards, or 'mats,' 
are the best, like this : 




They are put along the bottom of the trench, 
the long * runners ' resting on bricks taken from 
ruined houses, so as to raise the board and al- 
low drainage underneath. If possible, a deep 
sump-pit is dug under the centre of the board. 
(The shaded part represents the sump-pit; the 
dotted lines are the sides of the trench; the 
whole drawing in plan.)" 

Weariness. Mud. The next experience (not 
mentioned in my letter) was Death. On our 



36 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

immediate right was ' * C " Company. Here our 

trench runs out like this A » more or less, 

and the opposite trenches are very close to- 
gether. Consequently it is a great place for 
** mining activity." One evening we put up a 
mine; the next afternoon the Germans put up 
a counter-mine, and accompanied it with a hail 
of trench-mortars. I was on trench duty at the 
time, and had ample opportunity of observing 
the genus trench-mortar and its habits. One can 
see them approaching some time before they 
actually fall, as they come from a great height 
(in military terms "with a steep trajectory"), 
and one can see them revolving as they topple 
down. Then they fall with a thud, and black 
smoke comes up and mud spatters all about. 
Most of them were falling in our second line and 
support trenches. I was patrolling up and down 
our front trench. We were ''standing to" after 
the mine, and for half an hour it was rather a 
''hot shop." I was delighted to find that I 
rather enjoyed it: seeing one or two of the 
new draft with the "wind up" a bit steadied 
me at once. I have hardly ever since felt the 
slightest nervousness under fire. It is mainly 
temperament. Our company had four casual- 
ties; one in the front trench, the three others 
in the platoon in support. "C" Company suf- 
fered more heavily. At 6 Edwards came on 
duty, and I was able to go in quest of two bomb- 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 37 

ers who were said to be wounded. Getting near 
tlie place I came on a man standing half-dazed 
in the trench. ''Oh, sirrh," he cried, in the 
burring speech of a true Welshman. ''A terench- 
mohrterh hass fall-en ericht in-ter me duck- 
out." For the moment I felt like laughing at the 
man's curious speech and look, but I saw that he 
was greatly scared : and no wonder. A trench 
mortar had dropped right into the mouth of his 
dug-out, and had half buried two of his com- 
rades. We were soon engaged in extricating 
them. Both had bad head wounds, and how he 
escaped is a miracle. I helped carry the two 
men out and over the debris of flattened trenches 
to Company Headquarters. So, for the first 
time I looked upon two dying men, and some of 
their blood was on my clothes. One died in half 
an hour — the other early next morning. It was 
really not my job to assist : the stretcher-bear- 
ers were better at it than I, yet in this first little 
bit of ''strafe" I was carried away by my in- 
stinct, whereas later I would have been attend- 
ing to the living members of my platoon, and 
the defence of my sector. I left the company 
sergeant-major in difficulties as to whether 
Eandall, the man who had so miraculously 
escaped, and who was temporarily dazed, should 
be returned as ' ' sick " or " wounded. ' ' 

Another death that came into my close ex- 
perience was that of a lance-corporal in my 



38 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

platoon. I had only spoken to him a quarter of 
an hour before, and on returning found him ly- 
ing dead on the fire-platform. He had been killed 
instantaneously by a rifle grenade. I lifted the 
waterproof sheet and looked at him. I remem- 
ber that I was moved, but there was nothing- 
repulsive about his recumbent figure. I think 
the novelty and interest of these first casualties 
made them quite easy to bear. I was so busy 
noticing details : the silence that reigned for a 
few hours in my platoon; the details of remov- 
ing the bodies, the collecting of kit, etc. These 
things at first blunted my perception of the vile- 
ness of the tragedy; nor did I feel the cruelty 
of war as I did later. 

Weariness. Mud. Death. So it was with 
great joy that we would return to billets, to get 
dry and clean, to eat, sleep, and write letters ; to 
drill, and carry out inspections. Company drill, 
bayonet-fighting, gas-helmet drill, musketry, and 
lectures were usually confined to the morning 
and early afternoon. We thought that we had 
rather an overdose of lecturing from our medi- 
cal officer (the M.O.) on sanitation and the care 
of the feet. * ' Trench feet, ' ' one lecture always 
began, ''is that state produced by excessive cold 
or long standing in water or liquid mud. ' ' We 
soon got to know too much, we felt, about the 
use of whale-oil and anti-frostbite grease, the 
changing of socks and the rubbing and stamp- 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 39 

ing of feet. We did get rather ''fed up" with 
it ; yet I believe we had only one case of trench 
feet in our battalion throughout the winter; so 
perhaps it was worth our discomfort of attend- 
ing so many lectures! Our C.O.'s lectures on 
trench warfare were always worth hearing: he 
was so tremendously keen and such a perfect 
and whole-hearted soldier. 

A chapter might be written on billet-life. Here 
are a few more extracts from letters : 

*'Oct. 13th. All day long this little inn has 
shaken from top to bottom: there is one bat- 
tery about a hundred yards away that makes 
the whole house rattle like the inside of a motor- 
bus. The Germans might any time try and 
locate the battery, and a shell would reduce the 
house to ruins. Yet the old woman here declares 
she will not leave the house as long as she lives ! 

It is a strange place, this belt of land behind 
the firing-line. The men are out of the trenches 
for three days, and it is their duty, after per- 
haps a running parade before breakfast and two 
or three hours' drill and inspection in the morn- 
ing, to rest for the remainder of the day. In 
the morning you will see all the evolutions of 
company drill carried out in a small meadow 
behind a strip of woodland ; in the next field an 
old man and woman are unconcernedly hoeing 
a cabbage-patch; then behind here are a bat- 
talion's transport lines, with rows of horses 



40 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

picketed. Along the road an A.S.C. convoy is 
passing, each lorry at regulation distance from 
the next. In the afternoon you will see groups 
of Tommies doing nothing most religiously, 
smoking cigarettes, writing letters home. From 
six to eight the estaminets are open, and every- 
one flocks to them to get bad beer. They are 
also open an hour at midday, and then the order- 
ly officer, accompanied by the provost-sergeant, 
produces an electric silence with 'Any com- 
plaints?' It does not pay an estaminet-keei)ev 
to dilute his beer too much, or else he will lose 
his licence. 

I often wonder if these peasants think much. 
Think they must have done at the beginning, 
when their men were hastily called up. But 
now, after fifteen months of war ? It is the chil- 
dren, chiefly, who are interested in the aero- 
planes, shining like eagles silver-white against 
the blue sky; or in the boom from the battery 
across the street. But for their mothers and 
grandparents these things have settled into their 
lives; they are all one with the canal and the 
poplar trees. If a squad starts drilling on their 
lettuces, they are tremendously alert; but as 
for these other things, they are not interested, 
only unutterably tired of them. And after awhile 
you adopt the same attitude. The noise of the 
guns is boring and you hardly look up at an aero- 
plane, unless it is shrapnelled by the 'Archies' 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 41 

(anti-aircraft guns) ; then it is worth watching 
the pin-prick flashes dotting the sky all round 
it, leaving little white curls of smoke floating 
in the blue." 

That billet was close to the firing-line. Here 
is a letter from a village, eight miles back : 

''20th Oct., 1915. We came out here on Mon- 
day. The whole division marched out together. 
It was really an impressive sight, over a mile 
of troops on the march. Perfect order, perfect 
arrangement. Where the road bent you could 
often see the column for a mile in front, a great 
snake curling along the right side of the road. 
Occasionally an adjutant would break out of the 
line to trot back and correct some straggling; 
or a CO. would emerge for a gallop over the 
adjacent ploughland. 

Our company is billeted in a big prosperous 
farm. The men are in a roomy barn and look 
very comfortable. We are in a big room, on 
the right as you enter the front door of the 
farm : on a tiled floor stands a round table with 
an oilcloth cover, originally of a bright red pat- 
tern, but now subdued by constant scrubbings 
to the palest pink with occasional scarlet dot- 
tings. There are big tall windows, a wardrobe 
and sideboard, a big chimney-place fitted with 
a coke stove, and on the walls hang three very 
dirty old prints, The only war touch (beside 



42 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

our scattered possessions) is a picture from a 
French Illustrated of L'Assaut de Vermelles. 
Outside is a yard animated by cows, turkeys, 
geese, chicken, and ducks: also a donkey and a 
peacock, not to mention the usual dogs and cats. 
At 5 a.m. I am awakened by an amazing chorus. 

The 'patron' is a strong, competent man, with 
many fine buxom daughters, who do the farm 
work with great capacity and energy. Henriette 
with a pitchfork is strength and grace in action. 
Tommy is much in awe of her. She hustles the 
pigs relentlessly. The sons are at the war. 
Etienne and Marcelle, aged ten and eight re- 
spectively, complete the family; with Madame, 
of course, who makes inimitable coffee; and 
various grandparents who appear in white 
caps and cook and bake all day. 

I have just 'paid out' — all in five and twenty- 
franc notes. 'In the field' every man has his 
own pay book which the officer must sign, while 
the company quartermaster-sergeant sees that 
his acquittance roll is also signed by Tommy. 
We had a small table and chair out in the yard, 
and in an atmosphere of pigs and poultry I 
dealt out the blue-and-while oblongs which have 
already in many cases been converted into 
bread. For that is where most of the pay money 
goes, there and in the estaminets. The bread 
ration is always small, the biscuit ration over- 
flowing. Bully beef, by the way, is simply or- 



CUINCHY AND GIVENCHY 43 

dinary corned beef. I watched cooking opera- 
tions yesterday, and saw some fifty tins cut in 
half with an axe, clean hewn asunder, and the 
meat deftly hoicked with a fork into the field- 
kitchen, or ' cooker, ' which is a range and boiler 
on wheels. This was converted into a big stew, 
and served out in dixies (camp kettles) and so 
to the men's canteens. 

This afternoon our company practised an at- 
tack over open country. I was surprised to 
find the men so well trained. I had imagined 
that prolonged trench-warfare would have made 
them stale. The country is very flat. There 
are no hedges. The only un-English character- 
istics are the poplar rows, the dried beans tied 
round poles like mother-gamp umbrellas, and 
the wayside chapels and crucifixes. 

Yesterday afternoon Edwards and I got in 
a little revolver practice just near; and after- 
wards we had an energetic game of hockey, with 
sticks and an empty cartridge-case." 

Altogether, billet life was very enjoyable. On 
November 1st Captain Dixon joined our battal- 
ion and took over " B " Company. For over four 
months I worked under the most good-natured 
and popular officer in the battalion. We are al- 
ways in good spirits while he was with us. **I 
can't think why it is," he used to say, ''I'm not 
at all a jolly person, yet you fellows are always 
laughing ; and in my old regiment it was always 



4A NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

the same !" He was a fearful pessimist, but a fine 
soldier. His delight used to be to get a good fire 
blazing in billets, sit in front of it with a novel, 
and then deliver a tirade against the discomfort 
of war ! The great occasion used to be when the 
arch-pessimist, our quartermaster, was invited 
to dinner. Then Edwards, the Mess president, 
would produce endless courses, and the two pes- 
simists would warm to a delightful duologue on 
the fatuity of the Staff, the Army, and the Gov- 
ernment. 

*'By Jove, we are the biggest fools on this 
earth ! ' ' Dixon would say at last. 

''We're fools enough to be led by fools," Jim 
Potter would reply. 

And somehow we were all more cheerful than 
©ver! 



CHAPTER in 
WORKING-PARTIES 

** I J>ALL in the brick-party." 

I ^ The six privates awoke from a state of 
inert dreaming, or lolling against the 
barn that flanked the gateway of battalion head- 
quarters, to stand in two rows of three and await 
orders. At last the A. S. C. lorry had turned up, 
an hour late, and while it turned round I des- 
patched one of the privates to our transport to 
get six sand-bags. By the time he returned the 
lorry had performed its about-wheel, and, all 
aboard, myself in front and the six behind, we 
are off for C . 

We pass through Bethune. As we approach 
through the suburbs, we rattle past motor des- 
patch riders, A.S.C. lorries. Red Cross carts, col- 
umns of transport horses being exercised, of- 
ficers on horseback, officers in motor-cars, small 
unarmed fatigue parties, battalions on the 
march; then there are carts carrying bricks, 
French postmen on bicycles, French navvies in 
blue uniforms repairing the road, innumerable 
peasant traps, coal wagons, women with bas- 
kets, and children of course everywhere. ' ' Busi- 

45 



46 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

ness as usual" — yet, but for a line of men not 
so many miles away the place would be a deso- 
late ruin like the towns and villages that chance 
has doomed to be in the firing-line. 

So I moralize. Not so the Tommies, sprawling 
behind, inside the lorry, and caring not a jot for 
anything save that they are on a "cushy" or 
soft job, as the rest of the battalion are doing 
four hours' digging under R.E. supervision, A 
good thing to be a Tommy, to be told to fall in 
here or there, and not to know whether it is for 
a bayonet-charge, or a job of carting earth! 

"Bang — Bang-bang," We are nearing the 
firing-line, having left Bethune, where military 
police stand at every corner directing the traffic 
with flags, one road ' ' up, ' ' another ' ' down " : we 
are once more within the noisy but invisible 
chain of batteries. "Lorries 6 miles per hour." 
The shell-holes in the road, roughly filled with 
stones, would make quicker going impossible 

anyhow. We are entering C , and I keep an 

eagle eye open for ruined houses, and soon stop 
by a house with two walls and half a roof. Out 
come the six Tommies and proceed to fill a sand- 
bag each with bricks and empty it into the lorry. 
The supply is inexhaustible, and in half an hour 
the A.S.C. corporal refuses to take more, de- 
claring we have the regulation three-ton load, 
so I stop work and prepare to depart. 

The corporal, however, has heard of a sister- 



WORKING-PARTIES 47 

lorry near by, which has unfortunately slipped 
into a ditch and, so to speak, sprained its ankle. 
Though extraordinarily unromantic in appear- 
ance, the corporal shows himself imbued with a 
spirit of knight errantry, and, having obtained 
my permission to rescue the fair damsel, sets off 
for what he declares cannot take more than ten 
minutes. As I thought the process would take 
probably more Uke twenty minutes, I let the men 
repair to a house on the opposite side of the road, 
where was a rather more undamaged piece of 
roof than usual (it was now raining), and my- 
self explored the place I happened to be in. 

Occasionally at home, one comes across a de- 
serted cottage in the country; a most desolate 
spirit pervades the place. Imagine, then, what 
it is like in these villages half a mile or a mile 
behind what has been the firing-line for now 
twelve months. A few steps off the main road 
brought me into what had formerly been a small 
garden belonging to a farm. There had been a 
red-brick wall all along the north side with fruit 
trees trained along it. Now, the wall was mostly 
a rubble-heap, and the fruit trees dead. One 
sickly pear tree struggled to exist in a crumpled 
sort of heap, but its wilted leaves only added to 
the desolation of the scene. An iron gate, be- 
tween red brick pillars, was still standing, 
strangely enough ; but the little lawn was run to 
waste, and had a crater in the middle of it about 



48 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

five feet across, inside of which was some dis- 
integrating animal, also empty tins, and other 
refuse. Trees were broken, weeds were every- 
where. I tried to reconstruct the place in my 
imagination, but it was a chaotic tangle. I came 
across a few belated raspberries, and picked one 
or two; they were tasteless and watery. Eub- 
bish and broken glass were strewn everywhere. 
It was a dreary sight in the grey rain ; the only 
sign of life a few chattering blue-tits. 

The house was an utter ruin, only a ground- 
room wall left standing ; some of the outhouses 
had not suffered so much, but all the roofs were 
gone. I saw a rusty mangle staring forlornly 
out of a heap of debris ; and a manger and hay- 
rack showed what had been a stable. The pond 
was just near, too, and gradually I could piece 
together the various elements of the farm. Who 
the owners were I vaguely wondered; perhaps 
they will return after the war; but I doubt if 
they could make much of the old ruins. These 
villages will most likely remain a blighted area 
for years, like the villages reclaimed by the 
jungle. Already the Virginia creeper and wood- 
bine are trying to cover the ugliness. . . . 

The Tommies meanwhile had been smoking 
Gold Flakes, and one or two had also been ex- 
ploring; one had discovered a child's elementary 
botany book, and was studying the illustrations 
when I came up. Our combined view now was 



.WOEKING-PARTIES 49 

** Where is the lorry?" and this view held the 
field, with increasing curiosity, annoyance, and 
vituperation, for one solid hour and a half. It 
was dinner-time, and a common bond of hunger 
held us, until at last in exasperation I marched 
half the party in quest of our errant conveyance. 
I was thoroughly annoyed with the gallant cor- 
poral. Three-quarters of a mile away I found 
the two lorries. My little corporal had rescued 
his lorn princess, but she, being a buxom wench, 
had brought her rescuer into like predicament ! 
And so we came up just in time to see the rescue 
of our lorry from the treacherous ditch ! I felt 
I could not curse, especially as the little corporal 
had winded himself somehow in the stomach dur- 
ing the last bout. It had been a feeble show; 
yet there was the lorry, and in it the bricks, on to 
which the fellows climbed deliberately as men 
who recover a lost prize. And so we arrived at 
our transport (the bricks were for a horse-stand 
in a muddy yard) at half-past two ; after which 
I dismissed the party to its belated dinner. 

The above incident hardly deserves a place in 
a chapter headed "working-parties," being in 
almost every respect different from any other I 
have ever conducted. I think the "working- 
party" is realized less than anything else in this 
war by those who have not been at the front. 
It does not appeal to the imagination. Yet it is 
essential to realize, if one wants to know what 



50 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

this war is like, the amount of sheer dogged la- 
bor performed by the infantry in digging, drain- 
ing, and improving trenches. 

The ''working-party" usually consists of 
seventy to a hundred men from a company, with 
either one or two officers. The Brigadier going 
round the trenches finds a communication trench 
falling in, and about a foot of mud at the bottom. 
"Get a working-party on to this at once," he 
says to his Staff Captain. The Staff Captain 
consults one of the R.E. officers, and a note is 
sent to the Adjutant of one of the two battalions 
in billets : ' ' Your battalion will provide a work- 
ing party of ... officers . . . full ranks 
(sergeants and corporals) and . . . other 
ranks to-morrow. Report to Lt. . . . , R.E., at 
. . . at 5 P.M. to-morrow for work on . . . 
Trench. Tools will be provided." The Staff 
Captain then dismisses the matter from his 
head. The Adjutant then sends the same note 
to one or more of the four company commanders, 
detailing the number of men to be sent by the 
companies specified by him. (He is scrupulous- 
ly careful to divide work equally between the 
companies, by the way.) The company comman- 
der on receiving the notes curses volubly, de- 
clares it a " d — d shame the hardest worked bat- 
talion in the brigade can't be allowed a moment's 
rest, feels sure the men will mutiny one of these 
days," etc., summons the orderly, who is frowst- 



WORKING-PARTIES 5 1 

ing in the next room with the officers' servants, 
and says, ''Take this to the sergeant-major," af- 
ter scribbing on the note ''Parade outside Com- 
pany H.Q. 3.30 P.M.," and adding, as the or- 
derly departs, "Might tell the quartermaster- 
sergeant I want to see him." Meanwhile the 
three subalterns are extraordinarily engrossed 
in their various occupations, until the company 
commander boldly states that it is "rotten luck, 
but he supposes as So-and-so took the last, it is 
So-and-so's turn, isn't it?" and details the offi- 
cers; if they are new officers he tells them the 
sergeants will know exactly what to do, and if 
they are old hands he tells them nothing what- 
ever. The ' ' quarter ' ' ( company quartermaster- 
sergeant) then arrives, and is told the party will 
not be back, probably, till 10 P.M., and will he 
make sure, please, that hot soup is ready for the 
men on return, and also dry socks if it turns out 
wet ; he is then given a drink, and the company 
commander's work is finished. 

Meanwhile the company sergeant-major has 
received the orders from the orderly, and sum- 
mons unto him the orderly-sergeant, and from 
his "roster," or roll, ticks off the men and 
N.C.O.'s to be warned for the working party. 
This the orderly-sergeant does by going round to 
the various bams and personally reading out 
each man's name, and on getting the answer, say- 
ing, "You're for working party, 3.15 to-day." 



52 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

The exact nature of the remarks when he is gone 
are beyond my province. Only, as an officer tak- 
ing the party, one knows that at 3.25 p.m. the 
senior sergeant calls the two lines of waiting 
* ' other ranks ' ' to attention, and with a slap on his 
rifle, announces "Working-party present. Sir," 
as you stroll up. Working-parties are dressed in 
* ' musketry order ' ' usually — that is to say, with 
equipment, but no packs ; rifles and ammunition, 
of course, and waterproof sheets rolled and fas- 
tened to the webbing belt. The officer then tells 
the sergeant to "stand them easy," while he 
asks one or two questions, and looks once more 
at * ' orders ' ' which the senior sergeant has prob- 
ably brought on parade, and at 3.30, with a 
"Company-Shern! Slo-o-ope hip! Eight-in- 
f ours : form fors ! Eight ! By the right, Quick 
march!" leads off his party, giving "March at 
ease, march-easy ! ' ' almost in one breath as soon 
as he rounds the corner. Then there is a hitching 
of rifles to the favourite position, and a buzz of 
remarks and whistles and song behind, while the 
sergeant edges up to the officer or the officer 
edges back to the sergeant, according to their 
degree of intimacy, and the working-party is on 
its way. 

One working-party I remember very well. We 

were in billets at , and really tired out. It 

was Nov. 6th, and on looking up my letters I 



WORKING-PARTIES 53 

find our movements for the last week had been 

as follows: 

Oct. 29th. 9 A.M. Moved off from billets. 

12 midday. Lunch. 

3 P.M. Arrived in front trenches. 

Oct. 30th. Front trenches. 

Oct. 31st. Front trenches. 

Nov. 1st. Relieved at 3 P.M. (The Devons 
were very late relieving us, owing 
to bad rain and mud.) 
5.30 P.M. Reached billets. 

Nov. 2nd. Rain all day. Morning spent by 
men in trying to clean up. Af- 
ternoon, baths. 

Nov. 3rd. 9 A.M. Started off for trenches 
again. It had rained incessantly. 
Mud terrible. 
1 P.M. Arrived in front trenches. 

Nov. 4th. Front trenches. Rained all day. 
Nov. 5th. 2.30 P.M. Relieved late again. Mud 
colossal. Billets 5 P.M. 

Nov. 6th. Morning. Cleaning up. Inspection 
by CO. 
Afternoon. Sudden and unexpect- 
ed Working-Paety. 3 P.M. — 
11P.M.!! 

Yet I thoroughly enjoyed those eight hours, 
I remember. There were, I suppose, about 



54 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

eighty N.C.O.'s and men from "B" Company. 
I was in charge, with one other officer. "We halt- 
ed at a place whither the ' ' cooker" had been pre- 
viously despatched, and where the men had their 
tea. Luckily it was fine. The men sat about on 
lumps of trench-boards and coils of barbed wire, 
for the place was an ''R.E. Dump," where a 
large accumulation of E.E. stores of all descrip- 
tion was to be found. I apologized to the E.E. 
officer for keeping him a few minutes while the 
men finished their tea; he, however, a second- 
lieutenant, was in no hurry whatever, it seemed, 
and waited about a quarter of an hour for us. 
Then I fell the men in, and they ' ' drew tools, ' ' 
so many men a pick, so many a shovel (the usual 
proportion is one pick, two shovels), and we 
splodged along through whitish clay of the stick- 
iest calibre in the gathering twilight. An R.E. 
corporal and two R.E. privates had joined us 
mysteriously by now, as well as the second-lieu- 
tenant, and crossing H Street we plunged 

down into a communication trench, and started 
the long mazy grope. The R.E. corporal was 
guide. The trench was all paved with trench- 
mats, but these were not '4aid," only ''shoved 
down" anyhow; consequently they wobbled, and 
one's boot slipped off the side into squelch, rub- 
bing the ankle. Continually came up the mes- 
sage from behind, "Lost touch. Sir!" This in- 
volved a wait — one, two minutes — until the ''AH- 



WORKING-PARTIES 55 

up" or "All-in" came up. (One hears it com- 
ing in a hoarse whisper, and starts before it 
actually arrives. Infinite patience is necessary. 
R.E. officers are sometimes eager to go ahead; 
but once lose the last ten men at night in an un- 
known trench, and it may take three hours to 
find them.) The other officer was bringing up 
the rear. 

At last we reached our destination, and the 
R.E. officer and myself told off the men to work 
along the trench. This particular work was 
clearing what is known as a "berm," that is, the 
flat strip of ground between the edge of the 
trench and the thrown-up earth, each side of a 
C.T. (communication trench). 

When a trench is first dug, the earth is thrown 
up each side; the recent rains were, however, 
causing the trenches to crumble in everywhere, 
and the weight of the thrown-up earth was es- 
pecially the cause of this. Consequently, if the 
earth were cleared away a yard on each side of 




the trench, and thrown further back, the trench 
would probably be saved from falling in to any 
serious extent, and the light labor of shovelling 
dry earth a yard or so back would be substituted 



56 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

for the heart-breaking toil of throwing sloppy 
mud or sticky clay out of a trench higher than 
yourself. 

The work to be done had been explained to the 
sergeants before we left our starting-point. As 
we went along, the R.E. officer told off men at 
ten or five yards' interval, according to the 
amount of earth to be moved. Each man stopped 
when told off, and the rest of the company passed 
him. Sergeants and corporals stopped with 
their section or platoon, and got the men started 
as soon as the last man of the company had 
passed. At last up came the last man, sergeant, 
and the other officer, and together we went back 
all along. The men were on top (that is why 
the working-party was a night one) ; sometimes 
they had not understood their orders and were 
doing something wrong (a slack sergeant would 
then probably have to be ruled out and told 
off) . The men worked like fun, of course, it be- 
ing known, to every one's joy, that this was a 
piece-job, and that we went home as soon as it 
was finished. There was absolute silence, except 
the sound of falling earth, and an occasional 
chink of iron against stone ; or a swish, and mut- 
tered cursings, as a bit of trench fell in with a 
slide, dragging a man with it ; for it is not always 
easy to clear a yard- wide ''berm" without 
crumbling the trench-edge in. One would not 
think these men were ''worn out" to see them 



WORKING-PARTIES 57 

working as no other men in the world can work ; 
for nearly every man was a miner. The novice 
will do only half the work a trained miner will 
do, with the same effort. 

Sometimes I was appealed to as to the 
*'yard." Was this wide enough? One man had 
had an unlucky bit given him with a lot of extra 
earth from a dug-out thrown on to the original 
lot. So I redivided the task. It is amazing the 
way the time passes while going along a line of 
workers, noticing, talking, correcting, praising. 
By the time I got to the first men of the company, 
they were half-way through the task. 

At last the job was finished. As many men as 
space allowed were put on to help one section 
that somehow was behind; whether it was bad 
luck in distribution or slack work no one knew 
or cared. The work must be finished. The men 
wanted to smoke, but I would not let them; it 
was too near the front trenches. And then I did a 
foolish thing, which might have been disastrous ! 
The R.E. corporal had remained, though the 
officer had left long ago. The corporal was 
to act as guide back, and this he was quite ready 
to do if I was not quite sure of the way. I, how- 
ever, felt sure of it, and as the corporal would 
be saved a long tramp if he could go off to his 
dug-out direct without coming with us, I foolish- 
ly said I had no need of him, and let him go. I 
then lost my way completely. We had never 



58 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

been in that section before, and none of the ser- 
geants knew it. We had come from the "R.E. 
Dump, ' ' and thither we must return, leaving our 
tools on the way. But I had been told to take the 
men to the Divisional Soup Kitchen first, which 
was about four hundred yards north of X, the 
spot where we entered the C.T. and which I was 
trying to find. For all I knew I was going miles 
in the wrong direction. My only guide was the 
flares behind, which assured me I was not walk- 
ing to the Germans but away from them. The 
unknown trenches began to excite among the 
sergeants the suspicion that all was not well. 
But I took the most colossal risk of stating that 
I knew perfectly well what I was doing, and 
strode on ahead. 

There was silence behind after that, save for 
splashings and splodgings. My heart misgave 
me that I was coming to undrained trenches of 
the worst description, or to water-logged im- 
passes! Still I strode on, or waited intermin- 
able waits for the ' ' All up ' ' signal. At last we 
reached houses, grim and black, new and awfully 
unknown. I nearly tumbled down a cellar as a 
sentry challenged. I was preparing for humble 
questions as to where we were, the nearest way 
to X, and a possible joke to the sergeant (this 
joke had not materialised, and seemed unlikely 
to be of the easiest), when I recovered myself 
from the cellar, mounted some steps, and found 



WORKING-PARTIES 59 

myself on a road beside a group of Tommies 
emerging from the Soup Kitchen ! My star (the 
only one visible, I believe, that inky night) had 
led me there direct! I said nothing, as every 
one warmed up in spirits as well as bodies with 
that excellent soup ; and no one ever knew of the 
quailings of my heart along those unknown 
trenches! To lead men wrong is always bad; 
but when they are tired out it is unpardonable, 
and not quickly forgotten. As it was, canteens 
were soon brimming with thick vegetable soup, 
filled from a bubbling cauldron with a mighty 
ladle. In the hot room men glistened and per- 
spired, while a regular steam arose from mud- 
died boots and puttees; every one, from officer 
to latest joined private, was sipping with danger- 
ous avidity the boiling fluid. Many charges have 
been laid against divisional staffs, but never a 
complaint have I heard against a soup kitchen ! 
So in good spirits we tramped along, and dumped 
our tools in the place where we had found them. 
''Clank-clank, clank," as spade fell on spade. 
Then, ' ' You may smoke" was passed down. The 
sergeant reported ''All correct, Sir!" and we 
tramped along in file. Soon the bursts of song 
were swallowed up in a great whistling concert, 
and we were all merry. The fit passed, and there 
was silence ; then came the singing again, which 
developed into hymns, and that took us into our 
billets. Here vre were greeted with the most 



60 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

abominable news of reveille at 5 A.M., but I 
think most of the men were too sleepy to hear 
it ; we two officers deplored our fate while eating 
a supper set out for us in a greenhouse, our 
temporary mess-room! 

That is a working-party : interesting as a first 
experience to an officer ; but when multiplied ex- 
ceedingly, by day, by night, in rain, mud, sleet, 
and snow, carrying trench boards, filling sand- 
bags, digging clay, bailing out liquid mud, and 
returning cold and drenched, without soup — 
then, working-parties became a monotonous suc- 
cession of discomforts that wore out the spirit as 
well as the body. 

The last six nights before the promised rest 
were spent in working-parties at Festubert. 
There the ground was low and wet, and it was 
decided to build a line of breastwork trenches a 
few hundred yards behind the existing line, so 
that we could retire on to dry ground in case of 
getting swamped out. For six nights in suc- 
cession we left billets at 10 P.M. and returned 
by 4 A.M. The weather was the coldest, it 
turned out eventually, that winter. It started 
with snow; then followed hard frost for four 
nights; and, last but not least, a thaw and in- 
cessant sleet and rain. I have never before ex- 
perienced such cold; but, on the other hand, I 
have never before had to stand about all night 
in a severe frost (it was actually, I believe, from 



WORKING-PAETIES 61 

10° to 15" below freezing point). At 2 A.M. 
the stars would glitter with relentless mirth, as 
the cold pierced through two cardigans and a 
sheepskin waistcoat. I have skated at night, but 
always to return by midnight to fire and bed. 
Bed! At home people were sleeping as com- 
fortably as usual ; a few extra blankets, perhaps, 
or more coals in the grate ! 

I was out five nights of the six. Captain Dix- 
on was on leave, so we only had three officers in 
**B," and two had to go every night. Every 
night at 9.30 the company would be fallen in and 
marched off to the rendezvous, there, at 10, to 
join the rest of the battalion. There was no 
singing; very little talking. In parts the road 
was very bad, and we marched in file. The road 
was full of shell-holes, and bad generally ; the ice 
crackled and tinkled in the ruts and puddles; 
the frozen mud inclined you to stumble over its 
ridges and bumps. It took us the best part of an 
hour to reach our destination. The first night 
we must have gone earlier than the other nights, 
as I distinctly remember viewing by daylight 
those most amazing ruins. There was a barrier 
across the road just before you entered the vil- 
lage; (a barrier is usually made hke this — 



you can defend the road without blocking it to 



62 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

traffic ; at the same time it cannot be rushed by 
motor-cycles or armoured cars) ; then just op- 
posite were the few standing fragments of the 
church ; bits of wall and muUion here and there ; 
and all around tombstones leaning in every di- 
rection, rooted up, shattered, split. There was 
one of the crucifixes standing untouched in the 
middle of it all, about which so much has been 
written ; whether it had fallen and been erected 
again I cannot say. The houses were more 
smashed, crumpled, and chaotic than even Cuin- 
chy or Givenchy. 

I remember that corner very vividly, because 
at that spot came one of the few occasions on 
which I had the ''wind up" a little. Why, I 
know not. We were halted a few moments, when 
two whizz-bangs shot suddenly into a garden 
about twenty yards to our right, with a vicious 
*'Vee-bm . . . Vee-bm." We moved on, and 
just as we got round the corner I saw two flashes 
on my left, and two more shells hissed right over 
us and fell with the same stinging snarl into the 
same spot, just twenty yards over us this time. 
I was, luckily, marching at the rear of the com- 
pany at the time, as I ducked and almost sprawl- 
ed in alarm. For the next minute or two I was 
all quivery. I am glad to know what it feels like, 
as I have never experienced since such an abject 
windiness ! I believe it was mainly due to being 
so exposed on the hard hedgeless road ; or, per- 



WORKING-PARTIES 63 

haps that last pair did actually go particularly 
near me. At any rate, such was my experience, 
and so I record it. 

At the entrance to the communication trench 
R.E. officers told us off: ''A" Company, ''carry- 
ing party"; "B" Company to draw shovels and 
picks and "follow me." Then we started off 
along about a mile and a half of communication 
trenches. I have already said that Festubert is 
a very wet district, and it can easily be imagined 
that the drainage problem is none of the easiest. 
This long communication trench had been mas- 
tered by trench-mats fastened down on long pic- 
kets which were driven deep down into the mud. 
The result was that the trench floor was raised 
about two feet from the original bottom, and one 
walked along a hollow-sounding platform over 
stagnant water. The sound reminded me of 
walking along a wooden landing-stage off the 
end of a pier. Every few hundred yards were 
''passing points," presumably to facilitate pass- 



ing other troops coming in the other direction ; 
but as I never had the good fortune to meet the 
other troops at these particular spots, though I 
did in many others, I cannot say they were par- 
ticularly useful. Another disadvantage about 
these water-logged trenches was that the bad 



64 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

rains had made the water rise in several places 
even over the raised trench-board platform; 
others were fastened on top ; but even these were 
often not enough. And when the frost came and 
froze the water on top of the boards, the pro- 
cession became a veritable cake-walk, humorous 
no doubt to the stars and sky, but to the perform- 
ers, feeling their way in the thick darkness and 
ever slipping and plunging a boot and puttee in- 
to the icy water at the side, a nightmare of pain- 
ful and jarring experiences. 

There was one junction of trenches where one 
had to cross a dyke full of half-frozen water; 
there was always a congestion of troops here, 
ration-parties, relieving-parties, and ourselves, 
All relieving had to be done at night, as the 
trenches with their artificially raised floors were 
no longer deep enough to give cover from view. 
This crossing had to be negotiated in a most gin- 
gerly fashion, and several men got wet to their 
waists when compelled to cross while carrying 
an awkward-shaped hurdle. After this, the 
trench was worse than ever ; in parts it was built 
with fire-steps on one side, and one could scram- 
ble on to this and proceed on the dry for awhile ; 
but even here the slippery sand-bags would often 
treacherously slide you back into the worst part 
of the iced platform, and so gave but a doubtful 
advantage. At last the open was gained; then 
came the crossing of the old German trench, full 



WORKING-PARTIES 65 

of all kinds of grim relics from the spring fight- 
ing. And so to our destination. 

On the open ground lay a tracing of white tape 
like this — 




forming a serpentine series of contacting 
squares ; in the blackness only two white-border- 
ed squares were visible from one position. Each 
man was given a square to dig. I forget the 
measurements ; about two yards square, I think, 
and two feet deep. The earth had to be thrown 
about eight yards back against a breastwork of 
hurdles. These hurdles were being brought up 
by the ' ' carrying-parties ' ' and fastened by wires 
by the R.E.'s; the R.E. officers had, of course, 
laid our white tapes for us previously. Eventu- 
ally the sentries will stand behind the hurdle 
breastwork with a water-ditch ten yards in front 
of them, which obstacle will be suitably enhanced 
by strong wire entanglements. 

But all this vision of completion is hid from 
the eyes of Private Jones, who only knows he 
has his white-taped square to dig. Arms and 
equipment are laid carefully on the side of the 
trench furthest from the breastwork; and noth- 
ing can be heard but the hard breathing and the 



66 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

shovelling and scraping of the ''other ranks." 
For two hours those men worked their hardest ; 
indeed, it was much the best job to have on those 
cold nights. I did more digging then than I 
have ever done before or since. "Come on, 
Davies, you're all behind," and for ten minutes 
I would do an abnormal amount of shovelling, 
until, out of breath, I would hand the boy back 
his shovel, and tell him to carry on, while all 
aglow I went along the line examining the prog- 
ress of the work. We had quite a number of 
bullets singing and cracking across, and there 
were one or two casualties every night. Some- 
times flares would pop over, and every one would 
freeze into static posture; but on the whole 
things were very quiet, the enemy doubtless as 
full of water as ourselves. 

That intense cold! Yet I did not know then 
that it is far worse being on sentry in the frost 
than marching and digging. And I am not sure 
that the last night, when it rained incessantly, 
was not worse than all the rest. We had a par- 
ticularly bad piece of ground that night, pitted 
with shell-holes, full of frozen water : you were 
bound to fall in one at last, and get wet to the 
waist ; but even if you did escape that sticky hu- 
miliation, the driving sleet and rain were bad 
enough in themselves. That was a night when I 
found certain sergeants sheltered together in a 
corner ; and certain other sergeants in the middle 



WOEKING-P ARTIES 67 

of their men and the howling gale. I soon routed 
the former out, but did not forget; and have 
since discovered how valuable a test of the good 
and the useless N.C.O. is a working party in the 
rain. 

Never have I longed for 2 A.M. as I did that 
night! My feet were wet, my body tired, my 
whole frame shivering with an approaching cold. 
The men could do nothing any longer in that 
stinking slush (for these old shell-holes of stag- 
nant water were, to say the least of it, unsav- 
ory !). I was so heavy with sleep I could scarce 
keep my eyes open. But when at last the order 
came from our second-in-command "Cease 
work," I was filled with a dogged energy that 
carried me back to billets in the best of spirits, 
though I actually fell asleep as I marched be- 
hind the company, and bumped into the last four, 
when they halted suddenly half-way home ! And 
so at four o'clock the men tumbled upstairs to 
breakfast and braziers (thanks to a good quar- 
termaster-sergeant). I drank Bovril down be- 
low, and then, in pyjamas, sweaters, and innu- 
merable blankets, turned in till 11 A. M. Next 
afternoon we left Rue de I'Epinette and halted 
at a village on the road to Lillers, whence we 
were to train to "a more northern part of the 
line," and enjoy at last our long-earned rest. 



CHAPTER IV. 
REST 

RUMORS were rife again, and mostly 
right this time. ' ' The CO. knew the part 
we were going to : a chalk country . . . 
rolling downs . . . fonr or five weeks' rest 
. . . field training thirty miles from the firing- 
line." Chalk downs! To a Kentish man the 
words were magic, after the dull sodden flats of 
Flanders. I longed for a map of France, but 
could not get hold of one. As we marched to Lil- 
lers I looked at the flat straight roads and the 
ditches, at the weary monotony, uninspired by 
hill or view, at the floods on the roads, and the 
uninteresting straightness of the villages ; and I 
felt that I was at the end of a chapter. Any 
change must be better than this. And chalk! 
chalk! short dry turf, and slopes with purple 
woods ! I had forgotten these things existed. 

I forget the name of the village where we halt- 
ed for two nights. I had a little room to myself, 
reached by a rickety staircase from the yard. 
One shut the staircase door to keep out the yard. 
Here several new officers joined us, Clark being 
posted to our company, and soon I began to see 

68 



BEST 69 

my last two montlis as history. For we began 
to tell our adventures to Clark, who had never 
been in the firing-line! Think of it! He was 
envious of our experiences ! So I listened in awe 
and heard a tale develop, a true tale, t^^e tale of 
the night the mine went up. It was no longer a 
case of disputing how many trench-mortars came 
over, but telling an interested audience that 
trench-mortars did come over ! Clark had never 
seen one. And I listened agape to hear myself 
the hero of a humorous story. When the mine 
went up, I had come out of my dug-out rather 
late and asked if anything had happened. This 
tale became elaborated : I was putting my gloves 
on calmly, it seems, as I strolled out casually and 
asked if anyone had heard a rather loud noise ! 
And so stories crystallized, a word altered here 
and there for effect, but true, and as past his- 
tory quite interesting. 

The move was made the occasion, by our CO., 
of very elaborate and careful operation orders. 
No details were left to chance, and a conference 
of officers was called to explain the procedure of 
getting a battalion on a train and getting it off 
again. As usual, the officers' valises had to be 
ready at a very early hour, and the company 
mess-boxes packed correspondingly early. Ed- 
wards, I think, was detailed as O.C. loading-par- 
ty. Everything like this was down in the opera- 
tion orders. The adjutant had had a time of it. 



70 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

Certainly the entraining went like clockwork, 
and once more I was seated in a gray-upholstered 
corridor carriage ; the men were in those useful 
adaptable carriages inscribed ''Chevaux 10. 
Hommes 30." Our Tommies were evidently a 
kind of centaur class, for they went in by twen- 
ties. As far as I can remember, we entrained at 
10 A.M. and arrived at a station a few miles 
from Amiens at 9 P.M. A slow journey, but I 
felt excited like a child. I must keep going to 
the corridor to put my head out of the window. 
It was a sparkling nippy air; the smell of the 
steam, the grit of the engine — these were things 
I had forgotten; and soon there were rolling 
plains, hills, clustering villages. The route, 
through St. Pol, Doullens, and Canaples, is or- 
dinary enough, no doubt ; and so, too, the gleam 
of white chalk that came at last. But if you 
think that ordinary things cannot be wonderful 
beyond measure, then go and live above ground 
and underground in Flanders for two months on 
end in winter; then, perhaps, you will under- 
stand a little of my good spirits. 

It was quite dark when we arrived. Then for 
three and a half hours we waited in a meadow 
outside the station, arms piled, the men sitting 
about on their waterproof sheets. Meanwhile 
the transport detrained, a lengthy business. Tea 
was produced from those marvelous field-kitch- 
ens. The night was cold, though, and it was too 



BEST 71 

damp to sit down. For hours we stood about, 
tired. Then came the news that our six-mile 
march would be more like double six; that the 
billets had been altered! ... At half-past 
twelve we marched off. It was starlight, but 
pretty dark. Eighteen miles we marched, reach- 
ing Montague at half -past seven ; every man was 
in. full marching kit, and most of them carried 
sandbagfuls of extras. It was a big effort, espe- 
cially as the men had done nothing in the nature 
of a long march for months. Well I remember it 
— the tired silence, the steady tramp, along the 
interminable road. Sometimes the band would 
strike up for a little, but even bands tire, and 
cannot play continuously. Mile after mile of 
hard road, and then the hedges would spring up 
into houses, and from the opened windows would 
gaze down awakened women. Hardly ever was a 
light shown in any house. Then the village 
would be left behind, and men shifted their packs 
and exchanged a sand-bag, unslung a rifle from 
one shoulder to the other, and settled down to 
another stretch, wondering if the next village 
would be the last. 

So it went on interminably all through the 
winter night. Once we halted in a village, and I 
sat on a doorstep with 'Brien discussing meth- 
ods of keeping our eyes open. Edwards had 
been riding the horse, and had nearly tumbled 
off asleep. At another halt, half-way up a hill, 



72 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

I discovered a box of beef lozenges and distrib- 
uted it among No. 6 platoon. All the last ten 
miles I was carrying a rifle and a sand-bag. Ser- 
geant Callaghan had the same, besides all his' 
own kit. Sergeant Andrews kept on as steady as 
a rock. There were falterers, but we kept them 
in ; only in the last two miles did one or two drop 
)ut. And all the while I was elated beyond meas- 
ure ; partly at seeing men like Ginger Joe, with 
his dry wit flashing, and Tudor, with his stolid 
power; but partly, too, at the climb uphill, the 
swing down, mysterious woods, and the unmis- 
takable trunks of pines. And all the time we 
were steadily climbing ; we must be upon a regu- 
lar tableland. 

Dawn broke, and it got lighter and lighter — 
and so we entered Montague. The quartermas- 
ter had had a nice job billeting at 2 A.M., but he 
had done it, and the men dropped on to their 
straw, into outhouses, anywhere. The accom- 
modation seemed small and bad, but that could 
be arranged later. To get the men in, that was 
the main thing. One old woman fussed terribly, 
and the men looked like bayoneting her! We 
soon got the men in somehow. Then for our own 
billets. We agreed to have a scratch breakfast 
as soon as it could be procured. Meanwhile I 
went to the end of the village and found myself 
on the edge of the tableland; before me was 
spread out a great valley, with a poplar lined 



REST 73 

road flung right across it; villages were dotted 
about ; there were woods, and white ribbon by- 
roads. And over it all glowed the slant morning 
sun. I was on the edge of a chalky plateau ; it 
was all just as I had imagined. I slept from 11 
A.M. to 7 P.M., when I got up for a meal at 
which we were all short-tempered! And at 9 
P.M. I retired again to sleep till 7 next morning. 

Montague — How shall I be able to create a 
picture of Montague ? As I look back at all those 
eight months, the whole adventure seems unreal, 
a dream; yet somehow those first few days in 
the little village had for me a dream-like quality, 
unlike any other time. I think that then I felt 
that I was living in an unreality; whereas at 
other times life was real enough ; and it is only 
now, afterwards, that these days are gradually 
melting through distance into dreams. At any 
rate, if the next few pages are dull to the reader, 
let him try and weave into them a sort of fairy 
glamor, and imagine a kind of spell cast over 
everything in which people moved as in a dream. 

First, there was the country itself. The next 
day (after a day's sleep and a night's on top of 
it) was, if I remember right, rather wet, and we 
had kit inspection in billets, and tried to eke out 
the hours by gas-helmet drill, and arm-drill in 
squads distributed about the various farmyards 
and barns. Then Captain Dixon decided to take 
the company out on a short route march, and as 



74 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

it was raining very steadily we took half tlie 
company with two waterproof sheets per man. 
One sheet was thrown round the shoulders in the 
usual way ; the other was tied kilt-wise round the 
waist. The result was an effective rainproof, if 
unmilitary-looking dress ! We set off and soon 
came to a large wood with a hroad ride through 
it. 

Along this ride we marched, two-deep now, 
and I at the rear as second-in-command. Here 
I felt most strongly that strange glamour of un- 
reality. It was but three months ago, and I was 
in the heart of Wales, yet such was the effect 
of a few months that I looked on everything 
with the most exuberant sense of novelty. The 
rain-beads on the red-brown birch trees ; the ivy ; 
the oaks ; the strange stillness in the thick wood 
after the gusts of wind and slashes of rain ; espe- 
cially the sounds — chattering jays, invisible 
peeping birds, the squelching of boots on a wet 
grass track — everything reminded me of a past 
world that seemed immeasurably distant, of past 
winters that had been completely forgotten. 
Then we emerged into a wide clearing along the 
edge of the wood, full of stunted gorse and 
junipers. Long coarse grass grew in tussocks 
that matted under foot ; and now I could see the 
whole company straggling along in front of me, 
slipping and sliding about on the wet grass in 
their curious kilt-like costumes, some of which 



BEST 75 

were now showing signs of uneasiness and tend- 
ing to slip in rings to the ground. Everyone was 
very pleased with life. A halt was called at 
length, and while officers discussed buying shot- 
guns at Amiens, or stalking the wily hare with a 
revolver, Tommy, I have reason to believe, was 
planning more effective means of snaring Brer 
rabbit. Next day in orders appeared an extract 
from corps orders re prohibition of poaching 
and destruction of game. It was all part of the 
dream that we were surprised, almost shocked, 
at this unwarranted exhibition of property 
rights ! Not that there was much game about, 
anyhow. 

The next day we did an advance guard scheme, 
down in the plain. It was a crisp winter day, 
and I remember the great view from the top of 
the hill, on the edge of the plateau as you leave 
Montague. It was all mapped out, with its 
hedgeless fields, its curling white roads, and its 
few dark triangles and polygons of fir woods. 
But we had not long to see it, for we came into 
observation then (so this dream game pretend- 
ed!) and were soon in extended order working 
our way along over the plain. It all came back to 
one, this ' * open warfare ' ' business, the advanc- 
ing in short rushes, the flurried messages from 
excited officers to stolid platoon-sergeants, the 
taking cover, the fire-orders, the rattling of the 
bolts, the lying on the belly in a ploughed field ; 



76 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

and yes ! the spectator, old man or woman, gaz- 
ing in stupid amazement at the khaki figures 
rushing over his fields. Then came the assault, 
bayonets fixed, and the C.O.'s whistle, ending the 
game for that day. ' ' Game, ' ' that was it : it is 
all a game, and when you get tired you go home 
to a good meal, and discuss the humour of it, and 
probably have a pow-wow in the evening in 
which the O.C. ''A" is asked why he went off 
to the left, the real answer being that he lost di- 
rection badly, but the actual answer given ex- 
plaining the subtlety of a detour round a piece 
of dead ground! Which is the dream? this, or 
the mud-slogging in the trenches and the inter- 
minable nights I 

For, every night we went to bed ! Think of it ! 
Every night ! Always that bed, that silence, that 
priceless privacy of sleep ! I had a rather cold 
ground-floor billet with a door that would not 
shut ; yet it was worth any of your beds at home ! 
And I should be here for a month, perhaps six 
weeks! I wrote for my basin and stand, for 
books, for all sorts of things. I felt I could ac- 
cumulate, and spread myself. It was like home 
after hotels ! For always we had been moving, 
mo^dng ; even our six days out were often in two 
or even three different billets. 

So, too, with our mess. The dream here con- 
sisted of a jolly little parlor that was the envy 
of all the other company messes. As usual, the 



REST 77 

rooms led into one another, the kitchen into the 
parlor, the parlor into a bedroom; I might 
almost continue, and say the bedroom into a bed ! 
For the four-poster, when curtained off, is a lit- 
tle room in itself. It was a good billet, but best 
of all was Madame herself. Suffice it to say she 
would not take a penny for use of crockery ; and 
she would insist on our making full use of every- 
thing ; she allowed all our cooking to be done in 
her kitchen ; and on cold nights she would insist 
on our servants sitting in the kitchen, though 
that was her only sitting-room. Often have I 
come in about seven o'clock to find our dinner 
frizzling merrily on the fire under the supervis- 
ion of Gray, the cook, while Madame sat humbly 
in the corner eating a frugal supper of bread 
and milk, before retiring to her little room up- 
stairs. Ah, Madame ! there are many who have 
done what you have done, but few, I think, more 
graciously. If we tried to thank her for some 
extra kindness, she had always the same reply 
^'You are welcome, M. I'Officier. I have heard 
the guns, and the Germans passed through Am- 
iens; if it were not for the English, where 
should we be to-day?" 

So we settled down for our ''rest," for long 
field days, lectures after tea, football matches, 
and week-ends; I wrote for my Field Service 
Regulations, and rubbed up my knowledge of 
outposts and visual training. But scarcely had 



78 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

I been a week at Montagne when off I went sud- 
denly, on a Sunday morning, to the Third Army 
School. I had been told my name was down for 
it, a few days before, but I had forgotten all 
about it, when I received instructions to bicycle 
off with Sergeant Roberts ; my kit and servant to 
follow in a limber. I had no idea what the 
** Third Army School" was, but with "note- 
book, pencil, and protractor" I cycled off at 11 
A.M. ' ' to fields and pastures new. ' ' 

Most people, I imagine, have had the following 
experience. They have a great interest in some 
particular subject, yet they have somehow not 
got the key to it. They regret that they were 
never taught the elements of it at school; or it 
is some new science or interest that has arisen 
since their schooldays, such as flying or motor- 
ing. They are really ashamed of asking ques- 
tions ; and all books on the subject are technical 
and presuppose just that elementary knowledge 
that the interested amateur does not possess. 
Then suddenly he comes on a book with those 
delicious phrases in the preface promising *'to 
avoid all technical details," apologizing for 
"what may seem almost childishly elemen- 
tary, ' ' and containing at the end an expert bib- 
liography. These are the books written by very 
wise and very kind men, and because they are 
worth so much they usually cost least of all! 

Such was my delightful experience at the 



BEST 79 

Army School. I will confess to a terrible ignor- 
ance of my profession — ^I did not know how 
many brigades made np a division; ''the artil- 
lery" were to me vague people whom the com- 
pany commander rang up on the telephone, and 
who appeared in gaiters in Bethune; a bomb 
was a thing I avoided with a peculiar aversion ; 
and as to the general conduct of the war I was 
the most ignorant of pawns. The wildest things 
were said about Loos ; the Daily Mail had just 
heard of the Fokker, and I had not the remotest 
idea whether we were hopelessly outclassed in 
the air, or whether perhaps after all there were 
people *'up top" who were not so surprised or 
disconcerted at the appearance of the Fokker 
as the Northcliffe Press. Moreover, I had been 
impressed with the reiteration of my CO., that 
my battalion was the finest in the Army, and that 
my division was likewise the best. Yet I had 
always felt that there were other good battal- 
ions, and that ''K.'s Army" was, to say the 
least of it, in a considerable majority when com- 
pared with the contemptible little original whi«h 
I had had the luck to join! 

Imagine my delight, then, at finding myself 
one of over a hundred captains and senior sub- 
alterns representing their various battalions. 
Regulars, Territorials, and Kitcheners, we were 
all there together; one's vision widened like that 
of a boy first going to school. Here at least was 



80 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

a great opportunity, if only the staff was good. 
And any doubt on that question was instantly 
set at rest by the Commandant's opening ad- 
dress, explaining that the instructors were all 
picked men with a large experience in this war, 
that in the previous month's course mostly sub- 
alterns had been sent and this time it had been 
the aim to secure captains only (oh! balm in 
Gilead this !) and that apologies were due if some 
of the lectures and instructions were elemen- 
tary; that bombing experts, for instance, must 
not mind if the bombing course started right at 
the very beginning, as it had been found in the 
previous course that it was wrong to presume 
any military knowledge to be the common pos- 
session of all officers in the school. Those who 
understood my simile of the expert's kind book 
to the amateur will understand that there were 
few of us who did not welcome such a promising 
bill of fare. 

I do not intend to say much about the instruc- 
tion at the Army School — a good deal of what I 
learnt there is unconsciously embodied in the 
rest of this book — but it is the spirit of the place 
that I want to record. I can best describe it as 
the opposite of what is generally known as aca- 
demic. Theories and text-books about the war 
were at a discount : here were men who had been 
through the fire, every phase of it. It was not 
a question of opinions, but of facts. This came 



REST 81 

out most clearly in discussions after the lectures ; 
a point would be raised about advancing over 
the open: "We attacked at St. Julien over 
open ground under heavy fire, and such and such 
a thing was our experience" would at once come 
out from someone. And there was no scoring of 
debating points ! We were all out to pool our 
knowledge and experience all the time. 

The Commandant inspired in everyone a most 
tremendous enthusiasm. His lectures on ''Mo- 
rale" were the finest I have ever heard any- 
where. *'Put yourself in your men's position 
on every occasion; continually think for them, 
give them the best possible time, be in the best 
spirits always;" ''long faces" were anathema! 
No one can forget his tale of the doctor who 
never laughed, and whom he put in a barn and 
taught him how to! " 'Hail fellow well met' to 
all other officers and regiments" was another of 
his great points. ' ' Give 'em a d — d good lunch a 
— d — d good lunch. " " Get a good mess going. ' ' 
"Ask your Brigadier in to lunch in the trenches : 
make him come in." "Concerts'? — plenty of 
concerts in billets." "An extra tot of rum to 
men coming off patrol." All this was a "good 
show." But long faces, inhospitality, men not 
cheerful and singing, officers not seeing that 
their men get their dinners, after getting into 
billets, before getting their own; officers super- 
vising working-parties by sitting under hay- 



82 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

stacks instead of going about cheering the men ; 
brigadiers not knowing their officers; poor 
lunches — all these things were a **bad show, a 
d — d bad show!" These lectures were full of 
the most delicious anecdotes and thrilling stor- 
ies, and backed up by a huge enthusiasm and a 
most emphatic practice of his preaching. We 
had a concert every Wednesday, and every 
Saturday the four motor-buses took the officers 
into Amiens, and the sergeants on Sundays — 
week-ends were in fact ''good shows." 

Then there were the lectures. The second 
week, for instance, was a succession of lectures 
on the Battle of Loos. These lectures used to 
take place after tea, and the discussion usually 
lasted till dinner. First was a lecture by an in- 
fantry major of the Seventh Division (who need- 
less to say had been very much in it!). Then 
followed one by an artillery officer, giving his 
version of it; then followed an R.E. officer. 
There was nothing hidden away in a corner. It 
was all facts, facts, facts. An enlarged map of 
our own and the German trenches was most 
fascinating to us who had for the most part 
never handled one before. I remember the 
Major's description of the fighting in the Quar- 
ries ; it was one of the most vivid bits of narra- 
tive I have ever heard. Then there were other 
fascinating lectures — Captain Jefferies, the big 
game hunter, on Sniping: the Commandant 



REST 83 

again on Patrol work and discipline, and Deal- 
ing with prisoners : two lectures from the Royal 
Flying Corps, perhaps most fascinating of all. 

We drilled hard with rifles : we took a bombing 
course and threw live bombs : we went through 
the gas, and had a big demonstration with smoke 
bombs : we went to a squadron of the R.F.C, in- 
spected the sheds, saw the aeroplanes, and had 
anything we liked explained: we went out in 
motor-buses and carried out schemes of attack 
and defence: we did outpost schemes: dl-ew 
maps: dug trenches and revetted them. In 
short, there was very little we did not do at the 
School. 

It was, in fact, a "good show." The School 
was in a big white chateau on the main road — a 
new house built by the owner of a factory. The 
village really lies like a sediment at the bottom 
of a basin, with houses clustering and scrambling 
up the sides along the high road running out of 
it east and west, getting thinner and fewer up 
the hill, to disappear altogether on the tableland. 
The jute factory was working hard night and 
day: we used to have hot baths in the long 
wooden troughs that are used for dyeing long 
rolls of matting, and I know no hot baths to 
equal those forty-footers! 

Needless to say, we took advantage of our com- 
mandant's arrangement for free 'bus rides into 
Amiens every Saturday. Christmas Day falling 



84 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

on a Saturday, we all had a Christmas dinner at 
the Hotel de I'Univers. This, needless to say, 
was a ''good show." It was a pity, thongh, that 
turkey had been insisted on, as turkey with salad, 
minus sausages, bread-sauce, and brussels 
sprouts did not seem somehow the real thing; 
the chef had jibbed at sausages especially ! Bet- 
ter at Rome to have done completely as Rome 
does. After all we cannot give the French much 
advice in cooking or in war. Otherwise the din- 
ner was good, and unlike our folk at home we 
had a merry Christmas. 

Of course I went to see the Cathedral that 
Ruskin has claimed to be the most perfect build- 
ing in the world; indeed, each Saturday found 
me there ; for like all true beauty the edifice does 
not attract merely by novelty but satisfies the 
far truer test of familiarity. Yet I confess to 
a thrill on first entering that dream in stone, 
which could not come a second time. For down 
in the mud I had forgotten, in the obsession of 
the present, man's dreams and aspirations for 
the future. Now, here again I was in touch 
with the eternal things that wars do not affect. 
I remember once at Malvern we had been grop- 
ing and choking in a thick fog all day; then 
someone suggested a walk, and three of us ven- 
tured out and climbed the Beacon. Half-way 
up the fog began to thin, and soon we emerged 
into a clear sunshine. Below lay all the plain 



REST 85 

wrapped in a great level blanket of white fog; 
here and there the top of a tall tree or a small 
hill protruded its head out of the mist and seem- 
ed to be laughing at its poor hidden compan- 
ions ; and in a cloudless blue the sun was smil- 
ing at mankind below who had forgotten his 
very existence. So in Amiens Cathedral I used 
to get my head out of the thick fog of war 
for a time, and in that stately silence recover 
my vision of the sun. 

The cathedral is a building full of all the 
freshness of spring. I was at vespers there on 
Christmas afternoon, and was then impressed 
by the wonderful lightness of the building: so 
often there is gloom in a cathedral, that gives a 
heavy feeling. But Amiens Cathedral is per- 
fectly lighted, and in the east window glows a 
blue that reminded me of viper's bugloss in a 
Swiss meadow. My imagination flew back to 
the building of the cathedral, and to the brain 
that conceived it, and beyond that again to the 
tradition that through long years moulded the 
conception; and behind all to the idea, the ulti- 
mate birth of this perfect creation. And one 
seemed to be straining almost beyond humanity, 
to see the first spring flowers looking up in won- 
der at the sky. The stately pillars were man's 
aspiration towards his Creator, the floating 
music his attempt at praise. 

Yet it was only as I left the building that I 



86 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

found the key to the full understanding of this 
perfect expression of an idea. Round the chan- 
cel is a set of bas-reliefs depicting a saint labor- 
ing among his people. But what people ! They 
live, they speak! The relief is so deep, that 
some of the figures are almost in the round, and 
several come outside the slabs altogether. They 
are the people of mediaeval Amiens ; they are the 
very people who were living in the town while 
their great cathedral rose stone by stone to be 
the wonder of their city, the pride of all Picardy. 
Almost grotesque in their vivid humanity, they 
are the same people who walk outside the cathe- 
dral to-day. The master-artist, greater in his 
dreams than his fellow men, was yet blessed with 
that divine sense of humour that made him love 
them for their quaint smallnesses ! So in Amiens 
I felt a double inspiration: there was man's 
offering of his noblest and most beautiful to his 
Creator, and there was also the reminder, in 
the saint among the Amiens populace, that 
God's answer was not a proud bend of the head 
as He deigned to accept the offering of poor little 
man, but a coming down among them, a claiming 
of equality with them, even though they refuse 
still to realize their divinity, and choose to live 
in a self-made suffering and to degrade them- 
selves in a fog of war. 

All too quickly the month went by. The en- 
thusiasm and interest of everybody grew in a 



REST 87 

steady crescendo, and no one, I am sure, will 
ever forget the impression left by the Major- 
General who was deputed to come and 'Hell us 
one or two things ' ' from the General Staff. In a 
quiet voice, with a quiet smile, he compared our 
position with that of a year ago; told us facts 
about our numbers compared with the enemy's; 
our guns compared with his ; the real position in 
the air, the temporary superiority of the Fokker 
that would vanish completely and finally in a 
month or so ; in everything we were now superior 
except heavy trench-mortars, and in a month or 
so we should have a big supply of them too, and 
a d — d sight heavier ! And we could afford to 
wait. One got the impression that all our grous- 
ings and doubtings were completely out of date, 
that up at the top now was a unity of command 
that had thought everything out and could afford 
to wait. Later on I forgot this impression, but I 
remember it so well now. Even through Verdun 
we could afford to wait. We had all the cards 
now. There was a sort of breathless silence 
throughout this quiet speech. And when it 
ended with a ''Good luck to you, gentlemen," 
there was applause ; but one's chief desire was to 
go outside and shout. It was a bonfire mood: 
best of all would have been a bonfire of Daily 
Mails! 

We returned to our units on Sunday, 9th Jan- 
uary, 1916, by motor-bus, which conveyed us 



88 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

some sixty or seventy miles, when we were 
dropped, Sergeant Roberts, myself, and Lewis, 
my servant. Leaving Lewis with my valise, we 
walked in the moonlight up to Montagne, where 
I got the transport officer to send a limber for my 
valise. ''O'Brien on leave" was the first thing 
I grasped, as I tried to acclimatize myself to my 
surroundings. Leave! My three months was 
up, so I ought to get leave myself in a week or 
so ; in a few days in fact. My first leave ! The 
next week was rosy from the prospect. My 
second impression was like that of a poet full of 
a great sunset and trying to adjust himself to 
the dry unimaginative remarks of the rest of the 
community who have relegated sunsets to perdi- 
tion during dinner. For every one was so dull ! 
They groused, they maligned the Staff, they were 
pessimistic, they were ignorant, oh ! profoundly 
ignorant ; they were in fact in a state of not hav- 
ing seen a vision ! I could not believe then that 
the time would come when I, too, should forget 
the vision, and fix my eyes on the mud ! Still, 
for the moment, I was immensely surprised, 
though I was not such a fool as to start at once 
on a general reform of everyone, starting with 
the Brigadier. For under the Commandant's 
influence one felt ready to tell off the Brigadier, 
if he didn't get motor- 'buses to take your men 
to a divisional concert instead of saying the 



REST 89 

men must march three miles to it. But, as I 
say, I restrained myself. 

A week of field days, of advance guards and 
attacks in open order, of battalion drill, com- 
pany drill, arm-drill, gas-helmet drill ; lectures in 
the school in the evening, and running drill be- 
fore breakfast. Yet all the time I felt chafing 
to get back into the firing-line. I felt so much 
better equipped to command my men. I wanted 
to practise all my new ideas. Then my leave 
came through. 

Leave *' comes through" in the following man- 
ner. The lucky man receives an envelope from 
the orderly room, in the corner of which is 
written ''Leave." Inside is an "A" Form 
(Army Form C 2121) with this magic inscrip- 
tion: ''Please note you will take charge of 

other ranks proceeding on leave to-morrow 
morning, 17th inst. They will parade outside 
orderly room at 7 A.M. sharp." Then follow 
instructions as to where to meet the 'bus. ' ' Take 
charge ! " If you blind-folded those fellows they 
would find their way somehow by the quickest 
route to Blighty ! The officer is then an impos- 
sible person to live with. He is continually 
jumping about, upsetting everybody, getting 
sandwiches, and discussing England, looking at 
the paper to see "What's on" in town, talking, 
being unnecessarily bright and cheery. He is 
particularly offensive in the eyes of the man 



90 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

just come back from leave. Still, it is his day ; 
abide with him until he clears off! So they 
abode with me until the evening, and next morn- 
ing Oliver and I started off in the darkness with 
our four followers. As we left the village it was 
just beginning to lighten a little, and we met the 
drums just turning out, cold and sleepy. As we 
sprang down the hill, leaving Montague behind 
us, faintly through the dawn we heard reveille 
rousing our unfortunate comrades to another 
Monday morning ! 

Then came the long, long journey that no- 
body minds really, though every one grumbles 

at it. At B an hour's halt for omelettes and 

coffee and bread and jam, while the Y.M.C.A. 

stall supplied tea and buns innumerable. B 

will be a station known for all time to thousands. 

"Do you remember B ?" we shall ask each 

other. "Oh! yes. Good omelettes one got 
there." Then the port and the fussy E.T.O's 
again. Why make a fuss, when everyone is 
magnetized towards the boat? Under the light 
of a blazing gas-jet squirting from a pendant 
ball, we crossed the gangway. 

There were men of old time who fell on their 
native earth and kissed it, on returning after 
exile. We did not kiss the boards of Southamp- 
ton pier-head, but we understood the spirit that 
inspired that action as we steamed quietly along 



BEST 91 

the Solent over a gray and violet sea. There 
were mists that morning, and the Hampshire 
coast was gray and vague ; but steadily the en- 
gine throbbed, and we glided nearer and nearer, 
entered Southampton Water, and at last were 
near enough to see houses and fields and peo- 
ple. People. English women. 

We disembarked. But what dull, people to 
meet us ! Officials and watermen who have seen 
hundreds of leave-boats arrive — every day in 
fact! The last people to be able to respond to 
your feelings. Still, what does it matter? There 
is the train, and an English First! Some one 
started to run for one, and in a moment we were 
all running ! . . . 

But you have met us on leave. 



CHAPTER V 
ON THE MARCH 

ON this leave I most religiously visited 
relations and graciously received guests. 
For one thing, I felt it my duty to dispel 
all this ignorant pessimism that I found rolling 
about in large chunks, like the thunder in Alice 
in Wonderland. I exacted apologies, humble 
apologies, from them. *'How can we help it?" 
they pleaded. ''We have no means of knowing 
anything except through the papers." 

"No, I suppose you can't help it," I would 
reply, and forgive them from my throne of op- 
timism. Eight days passed easily enough. 

After dinner sometimes comes indigestion: 
people enjoy the one and not the other. So after 
leave comes the return from leave, the one in 
Tommy- French bon, the other no hon. I hope I 
do not offend by calling the state of the latter a 
mental indigestion ! It was with a kind of fierce 
joy that we threw out our bully and biscuits to 
the crowds of French children who lined the 
railway banks crying out, ' ' Bullee-beef , " ''Bis- 
keet." The custom of supplying these rations 
on the leave train has long since been discon- 

92 



ON THE MARCH 93 

tinued now, but in those days the little beggars 
used to know the time of the train to a nicety, 
and must have made a good trade of it. 

As soon as I got back to Montague I heard a 
*'move" was in the air, and I was delighted. I 
was fearfully keen to get back into the firing- 
line again. I was full of life, and in the mood 
for adventure. I started a diary. Here are 
some extracts: 

''29th January, 1916. Lewis (my servant) 
brought in a bucket of water this morning which 
contained 10% of mud. As the mud dribbled 
on to the green canvas of my bath during the 
end of the pouring, he saw it for the first time. 
Apparently the well is running dry. . . . He 
managed to get some clean water at length and 
I had a great bath. Madame asked me as I went 
in to breakfast why I whistled getting up that 
morning. I tried to explain that I was in good 
spirits. It was an exhilarating morning ; outside 
was a great cawing of rooks, and the slant sun- 
light lit up everything with a rich color; the 
mouldy green on the twigs of the apple trees was 
a joy to see. Later in the day I noticed how all 
this delicious morning light had gone. 

' ' 7 P.M. Orders have just come in for the move 
to-morrow. Loading party at 6 A.M. under 
Edwards, who is inwardly fed up but outwardly 
quite pleased. Valises to be ready by 6.45 A.M. 
Dixon grouses as usual at orders coming in late. 



94 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

These moves always try the tempers of all con- 
cerned. O'Brien and Edwards are now on the 
rustle, collecting kit. We have accumulated 
rather a lot of papers, books, tins of ration, 
tobacco, etc. 

Madame was genuinely sorry to see us go. 
We gave her a large but beautiful ornament for 
her mantelpiece, suitably inscribed. The dear 
soul was overwhelmed, and drew cider from a 
cellar hitherto unknown to us, which she pressed 
on our servants as well as on us. We made the 
fellows drink it, though they were not very keen 
on it! 

**30 Jan., 1916. Montague — Vaux-en-Amien- 
ois. I found myself suddenly detailed as O.C. 
rear party, in lieu of Edwards, who has to re- 
main in Montagne and hand over to the incom- 
ing battalion. At 9.30 three A.S.C. lorries ar- 
rived, and we loaded up. I had about forty men 
for the job. It was good to see these boys heav- 
ing up rolls of many-coloured blankets, which 
filled nearly two lorries; the third was packed 
with a mixture of boilers, dixies, brooms, spades, 
lamps, etc. The leather and skin waist-coats 
had to be left behind for a second journey: I 
left the shoemaker-sergeant and four men with 
these to await the return of one of the lorries. 
As we worked a fog rolled up, which was to stay 
all day. Edwards meanwhile saw to it that all 



ON THE MARCH 95 

the odd coal and wood left at the transport was 
taken to our good Madame; this much annoyed 
the groups of women who peered like vultures 
from the doorways, ready to squabble over the 
pickings as soon as the last of us had departed. 

Farewell to Montague. All the fellows were 
dull. Even Sawyer the smiling, who had been 
prominent with his cheery face in the loading- 
np, was silent and dull. No life. No spirit. A 
mournful lot, save for the plum-pudding dog 
that galloped ahead and on either flank, smelling 
and pouncing and tossing his mongrel ears in 
delight. He belonged to one of the men, a gift 
from a warm-hearted daughter of France. 

A dull lot, I say. I rallied them. I persuaded. 
I whistled, hoping to put a tune into their dull 
hearts ; and as we swung downhill into Riencourt 
they began to sing. It was but a sorry thin sort 
of singing though, like a winter sunshine ; there 
was no power behind it, no joy, no spontaneity. 
Suddenly, however, as we came into the village, 
there was a company of the Warwicks falling in, 
and everyone sang like fury. Baker, one of the 
last draft, was the moving spirit. But he is 
young to this life, and later on, wihen the fog 
had entered their souls again, he said he could 
not well sing with a pack on. Yet is not that the 
very time to sing, is not that the very virtue of 
singing, the conquest of the poor old body by the 
indomitable spirit? 



96 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

It was a fifteen-mile marcli. At the third halt 
I gave half an hour for the eating of bread and 
cheese. Then was the hour of the plum-pudding 
hound; also appeared a sort of Newfoundland 
collie, very big in the hind-quarters, and very 
dirty as well as ill-bred. Between them they 
made rich harvest of crusts and cheese. We sat 
on a bank along the road, but after half an hour 
we were all getting cold in the raw air, and I 
fell them in again, and we got on our way. Soon 
they warmed up and whistled and sang for a 
quarter of an hour; then silence returned, and 
eyes turned to the ground again. This march 
began to tell on the older men. Halford fell out, 
and I sent Corporal Dewey to bring him along, 
hastily scribbling the name of our destination 
on a slip torn from my field-message book, and 
giving it to him. Then Eiley fell out, and Flynn. 
I began to dread the appearance of Sergeant 
Hay man from the rear, to tell me of some one 
else. They were men, these, who had been em- 
ployed on various jobs; the older and weaker 
men. There was no skrim- shanking, for there 
was no Eed Cross cart behind us. But no one 
else fell out ; the pace was steady and they were 
as fit as anything, these fellows. Then happened 
an incident. We had just turned off the main 
Amiens road, and come to a forked road. I 
halted a moment to make sure of the way by the 
map, and while I did so apparently some ser- 




MAP III. 



OOB TBENCHBS 



CBUi&v meNCMSs 



■TrfVW^Jl 



ON THE MAECH 97 

geant from a regiment billeted in the village 
there told Sergeant Hayman that the battalion 
had taken the left road. The way was to the 
right, and as I struck up a steep hill, Sergeant 
Hayman ran up and told me the battalion 
(which had started nearly two hours before us) 
had gone to the left. 'I'm going to the right, 
sergeant,' said I. And the sergeant returned to 
the rear. Up, up, up. Grind, grind, grind. I 
began to hear signs of doubt behind. 'Did you 
hear that ? Said the battalion went t 'other way, ' 
and so on. 'Ain't 'e got a map all right! ' from 
a believer. 'Three kilos more,' I said at the 
next stop. But some of the fellows had got it 
into their heads, I could see, that we were wrong. 
I studied the map ; there was no doubt we were 
all right. Yet a mistake would be calamitous, 
as the men were very done. Ah! a kilo-stone! 

'Two kilos to ,' a place not named on the 

map at all. This gave me a qualm; and behind 
came the usual mispronunciations of this annoy- 
ing village on the stone. But lo ! on the left 
came a turning as per map. Eound we swung, 
downhill, and suddenly we were in a village. 
Another qualm as I saw it full of Jocks. The 
doubters were just beginning to realize this fact, 
when we turned another corner, and almost fell 
on top of the CO. ! In five minutes we were in 
billets. ..." 



98 NOTHINa OF IMPORTANCE 

The next day we marched to the village of 
Querrieux. There I heard the guns again after 
two months. 

"31st January. This evening was full of the 
walking tour spirit, the spirit of good company. 
We were billeted at a farmhouse, and the farmer 
showed Captain Dixon and me all round his 
farm. He was full of pride in everything; of 
his horses first of all. There were three in the 
first stable, sleek and strong; then we saw la 
mere, a beautiful mare in foal ; then lastly there 
was 'Piccaninny,' a yearling. All the stables 
were spotlessly clean, and the animals well kept. 
But to see him with his lambs was best of all. 
The ewes were feeding from racks that ran all 
along both sides of the sheds, and his lantern 
showed two long rows of level backs, solid and 
uniform and dull ; while in the middle of the shed 
was a jocund company of close-cropped lambs, 
frisking, pushing, jostling, or pulling at their 
dams ; as lively and naughty a crew as you could 
imagine. 'Ah ! voleur/ cried our friend, picking 
up a lamb that was stealing a drink from the 
wrong tap, and pointing to its dam at the other 
end of the shed; he fondled and stroked it like 
a puppy, making us hold it, and assuring us it 
was not mechant! 

At 7 we had our dinner in the kitchen. The 
farmer, his wife, and the domestique (a man- 



ON THE MARCH 99 

servant, whose history I will tell in a few min- 
utes) had just finished, and were going to clear 
off ; but we asked them to stay and let us drink 
their health in whiskey and soda. The farmer 
said this was wont to make the domestique go 
'zigzag' ; for himself, he would drink, not for the 
inherent pleasure of the whiskey, which was a 
strong drink to which he was unused, he being 
of the land of light wines, but to give us pleas- 
ure! So the usual healths were given in Old 
Orkney and Perrier. Then we were told the 
history of the domestique, which brought one 
very close to the spirit in which France is fight- 
ing. He had eight children in Peronne, barely 
ten miles the other side of the line. Called up 
in September, 1914, he was in the trenches until 
March, 1915, when he was released on account of 
his eight children. But by then the living line 
had set between them in steel and blood, and 
never a word yet has he heard of his wife and 
eight children, the youngest of whom he left 
nine days old ! There are times when our cause 
seems clouded with false motives; but there 
seemed no doubt on this score to-night, as we 
watched this man in his own land, creeping up, 
as it were, as near as possible to his wife and 
children and home, and yet barred from his own 
village, and without the knowlege even that his 
own dear ones were alive. The farmer told us 
he had gone half crazed. Yet he had a fine face, 



100 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

though furrowed with deep lines down his fore- 
head. 'Ten minutes in the yard with the Ger- 
mans — ^ah ! what would he do ! ' And vividly he 
drew his hand across his throat. But the Ger- 
mans would never go back : that was another of 
his opinions. No wonder he told us he doubted 
the bon Dieu: no wonder he sometimes went 
zigzag. 

The farmer was well educated, and had very 
intelligent views on the war ; one son was a cap- 
tain ; the other was also serving in some capac- 
ity. The wife made us good coffee, but got 
very sleepy: I learned she rose every morning 
at 4 A.M. to milk the cows. 

To-night we can hear the guns. There seems 
a considerable liveliness at several parts of the 
line, and strange rumors of the Germans break- 
ing through, which I do not believe. To-morrow 
we shall be within the shell-zone again. ' ' 

"Feb. 1st. To-day we marched to Morlan- 
court and are spending the night in huts. It is 
very cold, and we have a brazier made out of a 
biscuit tin, but it smokes abominably. We are 
busy getting trench-kit ready for the next day. 
From outside the hut I can see star-lights, and 
hear machine-guns tapping. It thrills like the 
turning up of the foot-lights." 

And it was a long act. The curtain did not 
fall till June. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE BOIS FRANQAIS TRENCHES 

THIS is a chapter of maps, diagrams, and 
technicalities. There are people, I know, 
who do not want maps, to whom maps 
eonvey practically nothing. These people can 
skip this chapter, and (from their point of view) 
they will lose nothing. The main interest of life 
lies in what is done and thought, and it does not 
much matter exactly where these acts and 
thoughts take place. Maps are like anatomy: 
to some people it is of absorbing interest to 
know where our bones, muscles, arteries and all 
the rest of our interior lie ; to others these things 
are of no account whatever. Yet all are alike 
interested in human people. And so, quite 
understanding (I think you are really very ro- 
mantic in your dislike of maps: you associate 
them with the duller kind of history, and ex- 
amination papers!) I bid you mapless ones 
farewell till Chapter VII, promising you (again) 
that you shall lose nothing. 

Now to work. We understand each other, we 
101 



102 ;. NOTHINO^ OF IMPORTANCE 

map-lovers. The other folk have gone on to the 
next chapter, so we can take our time. 

Now look at Map II. The River Ancre runs 
down west of the Thiepval ridge through Albert, 
and then in a south-westerly course through 
Mericourt-l'abbe down to Corbie, where it joins 
the Somme on its way to Amiens. On each side 
of the Ancre is high ground of about 100 metres. 
The high ground between the Ancre and the 
Somme forms a long tableland. There is no 
ridge, it is just high flat country, from three 
hundred and thirty to three hundred and forty 
feet, cultivated and hedgeless. Now look at Pri- 
court. It is a break in this high ground run- 
ning on the left bank of the Ancre, and this 
break is caused by a nameless tributary of that 
river, that joins it just west of Meaulte. And 
now you will see that this little streamlet was 
for over a year and a half the cause of much 
thought and labor to very many men indeed: 
for this stream formed the valley in which Fri- 
court lies ; and right across this valley, just south 
of that unimportant little village, ran for some 
twenty months or so the Franco- German and 
later the Anglo-German lines. 

Now look at the dotted line ( — . — .) which 
represents the trenches. From Thiepval down 
to Fricourt they run almost due north and south ; 
then they run up out of the valley on to the high 
ground at Bois Frangais (a small copse, I sup- 



BOIS FEANQAIS TRENCHES 103 

pose, once ; I have never discovered any vestige 
of a tree-stiunp among the shell-holes), and 
then abruptly run due east. It is as though 
someone had appeared suddenly on the corner 
of the shoulder at Bois FrauQais, and pushed 
them off, compelling them to make a detour. 
After five miles they manage to regain their 
direction and run south again. 

It is these trenches at Bois Fran^ais that we 
held for over four months. I may fairly claim 
to know every inch of them, I think! It is 
obvious that if you are at Bois Frangais, and 
look north, you have an uninterrupted view not 
only of both front lines running down into Fri- 
court valley, but of both lines running up on to 
the high ground north of Fricourt, and a very 
fine view indeed of Fricourt itself, and Fricourt 
wood. It is also quite clear that from their 
front lines north of Fricourt the Germans had 
a good view of our front lines and communica- 
tions in the valley; but of Bois Frangais and 
our trenches east of it they had no enfilade view, 
as all our communications were on the reverse 
slope of this shoulder of high ground. So as 
regards observation we were best off. More- 
over, whereas they could not possibly see our 
support lines and communications at Bois Fran- 
Qais, we could get a certain amount of enfilade 
observation of their trenches opposite from 



104 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

point 87, where was a work called Boute Re- 
doubt and an artillery observation post. 

The position of the artillery immediately be- 
comes clear, when the lie of the ground is once 
grasped. For field artillery enfilade fire is far 
more effective, as the trajectory is lower than 
that of heavy artillery. That is to say, a whizz- 
bang (the name given to an 18-lb. shell) more 
or less skims along the ground and comes at 
you; whereas howitzers fire up in the air, and 
the shell rushes down on top of you. To be 
explicit at the risk of boring : — 

If a battery of eighteen-pounders can fire up 
a trench like this : — 



it has far more effect against the nine men in 
that trench than if it fires like this : 



The same applies of course to howitzers, but 
as howitzers drop shells down almost perpen- 
dicularly, they can be used with great effect 
traversing along a trench, that is to say, getting 
the exact range of the trench in sketch (b), and 
dropping shells methodically from right to left. 



BOIS FRANQAIS TRENCHES 105 

or left to right, so many to each fire-bay, and 
dodging abont a bit, and going back on to a 
bit out of turn so that the enemy cannot tell 
where the next coal-box is coming. Oh! it is 
a great game this for the actors, but not for 
the unwilling audience. 

So you can see now why a battery of field artil- 
lery was stationed in the gully called Gibraltar, 
and another just west of Albert (at B) : each of 
these batteries could bring excellent enfilade 
fire on to the German trenches. There was an- 
other battery that fired from the place I have 
marked C, and another at D. The howitzers lived 
in all sorts of secret places, as far back as Mor- 
lancourt some of them. One never worried about 
them. They knew their own business. Once, in 
June, on our way into the trenches we halted 
close by a battery at E, and I looked into one of 
the gun-pits and saw the terrible monster sitting 
with its long nose in the air. And I saw the 
great shells (it was a 9.6) waiting in rows. But 
I felt like an interloper, and fled at the approach 
of a gunner. All these howitzers you see firing 
on the Somme films, we never saw or thought 
about ; only we loved to hear their shells whistl- 
ing and ''griding" (if there is no such word, I 
cannot help it: there is an ''r" and a *'d" in 
the sound anyway!) over our head, and falling 
''crump," "crump," "crump," along the Ger- 
man support trenches. There were a lot of 



106 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

batteries in the Bois des Tailles ; the woods were 
full of them, and grew fuller and fuller, I do 
not know what they all were. 

As one brigade contains four battalions, we 
almost invariably had two battalions in the line, 
and two "in billets." So it was usually ''six 
days in and six days out." During these six 
days out we also invariably supplied four work- 
ing-parties per company, which lasted nine hours 
from the time of falling in outside company 
headquarters to dismissing after marching 
back. Still, it was ''billets." One slept un- 
interruptedly, and with equipment and boots 
off. Now we were undeniably lucky in being 
invariably (from February to June, 1916) bil- 
leted in Morlancourt, which, as you can see from 
the map, is situated in a regular cup with high 
ground all round it. I have put in the 50-metre 
contour line to show exactly how the roads all 
run down into it from every quarter. It was a 
cosy spot, and a very jolly thing after that long, 
long weary grind up from Meaulte at the end 
of a weary six days in, to look down on the snug 
little village waiting for you below. For once 
over the hill and "swinging" down into Morlan- 
court, one became, as it were, cut off from the 
war suddenly and completely. It was somewhat 
like shutting the door on a stormy night : every- 
thing outside was going on just the same, but 



BOIS FEANQAIS TEENCHES 107 

with it was shut out also a wearing, straining 
tension of body and mind. 

Yes, we were very lucky in being billeted at 
Morlancourt. It was just too far off to be 
worth shelling, whereas Bray was shelled regu- 
larly almost every day. So was Meaulte. And 
there were brigades billeted in both Bray and 
Meaulte. There were troops in tents in the Bois 
des Tallies, and this too was sometimes shelled. 

Now just look, please, at the two thick lines, 
which represent alternative routes to the 
trenches. We were always able to relieve by 
day, thanks to the rolling nature of the country. 
(Where the line is dotted, this represents a 
trench.) We always used to go by the route 
through Meaulte at one time, until they took to 
shelling the road at the point I have marked Z ; 
whether they could see us from an observation 
post up la-Boiselle way, or whether they spotted 
up by observation balloon or aeroplane, one can- 
not say. But latterly we always used the route 
by the Bois des Tallies and Gibraltar. In both 
cases we had to cross the high ground S.W. of 
point 71 by trench, but on arrival at that point 
we were again in a valley and out of observation. 
All along this road were a series of dug-outs, 
and here were companies in reserve, R.E. head- 
quarters, E.A.M.C. dressing-station, field kitch- 
ens, stores, etc. And here the transport brought 
up rations every evening via Bray. One could 



108 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

walk about here, completely secure from view; 
but latterly they took to shelling it, and it was 
not a healthy spot then. It was also enfiladed 
occasionally by long-range machine-gun fire. 
But on the whole it was a good spot, and one 
had a curious sensation, being able to walk about 
on an open road within a thousand yards of the 
Germans. The dug-outs called ' ' 71 North ' ' were 
the best. The bank sloped up very steeply from 
the road, thus protecting the dug-outs along it 
from anything but shell-fire of very high tra- 
jectory. And this the Germans never used. 
However, one did not want to walk too far along 
the road, for it led round the corner into full 
view of Fricourt at X. There was a trench at 
the side of the road that ought to be hopped 
down into, but it could easily be missed, and 
there was no barrier across the road ! I saw a 
motorcyclist dash right along to the corner once, 
and return very speedily when he found himself 
gazing full view at Fricourt ! 

Map III is an enlargement of the area in Map 
II, and gives details of our trenches and the 
German trenches opposite. I wish I could con- 
vey the sense of intimacy with which I am filled 
when I look at this map. It is something like 
the feelings I should ascribe to a farmer looking 
at a map of his property, every inch of which 
he knows by heart; every field, every copse; 



BOIS FRANQAIS TRENCHES 109 

every lane, every hollow and hill are intimate 
things to him. With every corner he has some 
association; every tree cut down, every fence 
repaired, every road made up, every few hun- 
dred yards of shaw grubbed up, every acre of 
orchard enclosed and planted — all these he can 
call back to memory at his will. So do I know 
every corner, every turning in these trenches; 
every traverse has its peculiar familiarity, very 
often its peculiar history. This traverse was 

built the night after P 's death; this trench 

was dug because ''75 Street" was so marked 
down by the enemy rifle-grenades ; another was 
a terrible straight trench till we built those 
traverses in it; another was a morass until we 
boarded it. How well I remember being half 
buried by a canister at the corner of "78 
Street" ; and the night the mine blew in all the 
trench between the Fort and the Loop ; what an 
awful dug-out that was at Trafalgar-Square; 
how we loathed the straightness of Watling 
Street. And so on ad infinitum. We were in those 
trenches for over four months, and I know 
them as one knows the creakings of the doors 
at home, the subtle smell of the bath-room, the 
dusty atmosphere of the box-room, or the low- 
ness of the cellar door. Particularly intimate 
are the recollections of dug-outs, with their good 
or bad conveniences in the way of beds and 
tables, their beams that smote you on the head 



110 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

as regularly as clockwork, or their peculiarly 
musty smell. One dug-out invariably smelt of 
high rodent; another of sand-bag, nothing but 
sand-bag. 

From February, then, to June we kept on 
going into these trenches drawn on Map III, 
and then back to Morlancourt for rest and work- 
ing-parties, all as regular as clockwork. Once 
or twice the actual front line held by our bat- 
talion was altered, so that I have been in the 
trenches all along from the Cemetery (down in 
the valley) to the end of the craters opposite 
Danube Trench. But every time except twice my 
company held part of the trench between 83B 
(the end of the craters) and the Lewis gun posi- 
tion to the right of 76 Street. The usual dis- 
tribution of the battalion was as follows : — 

A Company. From 80 A to L. G. (Lewis gun) 

on right of 76. 
B " Maple Eedoubt. 

C ** 71 North. 

D " L. G. on right of 76 to 73 Street. 

(After three days A and B, and C and D, 
relieved each other.) 

Battalion Headquarters, 

Headquarter Bombers, Maple 

M.O. and H.O. Stretcher-bearers f Eedoubt. 

E.S.M. 

Maple Eedoubt was what is known as a 



BOIS FRANQAIS TRENCHES 111 

''strong point." In case of an enemy attack 
piercing our front line, the company in Maple 
Redoubt held out at all costs to the last man, 
even if the enemy got right past and down the 
hill. There was a dug-out which was provisioned 
full up with bully-beef and water (in empty 
petrol cans) ready for this emergency. There 
was a certain amount of barbed-wire put out in 
front of the trenches to N., W., and E. ; and there 
were two Lewis-gun positions at A and B. Really 
it was not a bad little place, although the ' * De- 
fences of Maple Redoubt" were always looked 
on by us as rather more of a big joke than any- 
thing. No one ever really took seriously the 
thought of the enemy coming over and reaching 
Maple Redoubt. Raid the front line he was liable 
to do at any moment; but attack on such a big 
scale as to come right through, no, no one really 
ever (beneath the rank of battalion commander 
anyway) worried about that. Still, if he did, 
there was the redoubt anyway; and there was 
another called ''Redoubt A" on the hill facing 
us, as one looked from Maple Redoubt across the 
smoke rising from dug-outs which could just not 
be seen under the bank at 71 North. Here was 
rumoured to be bully-beef and water also, and 
the Machine-gun Corps had some positions in it 
which they visited occasionally ; but even a notice 
' ' No one allowed this way, ' ' failed to tempt me 
to explore its interior. One saw it, traced out 



112 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

on the hill, from Maple Eedoubt, and there I 
have no doubt it still is, with its bully-beef intact 
and its water a little stale ! 

So much for Maple Eedoubt. In case of at- 
tack, as I have said, it was a strong point that 
must hold out at all costs, while the company 
at 71 North came up to Eue Albert, and would 
support either of the front companies as the CO. 
directed. The front companies of course held 
the front line to the last man. Meanwhile, the 
two battalions in billets would be marching up 
from Morlancourt, to the liigh ground above 
Eedoubt A (that is, just east of D on Map II). 
Up there were a series of entrenched "works," 
known as the "intermediate line." (The "sec- 
ond line" ran a little north of point 90, N.E. of 
Morlancourt. But no one took that seriously, 
anyway.) The battalions marching up from 
billets might have to hold these positions, or, 
what was more likely, be ordered to counter- 
attack immediately. Such was the defence 
scheme. 

"Six days in billets: three days in support. 
Not particularly hard, that sounds, ' ' I can hear 
someone say. I tried to disillusion people in an 
earlier chapter about the easiness of the "rest" 
in billets, owing to the incessant working-parties. 
These were even more incessant during these 
four months. Let me say a few words, then, also, 
about life in support trenches. I admit that for 



BOIS FEANCAIS TEENCHES 113 

officers it was not always an over-strenuous 
tinae; but look at Tommy's ordinary pro- 
gramme : — 

This would be a typical day, say, in April. 

4 A.M. Stand to, until it got light enough to 
clean your rifle ; then clean it. 

About 5 A.M. Get your rifle inspected, and 
turn in again. 

6.30 A.M. Turn out to carry breakfast up to 
company in front line. (Old Kent Eoad 
very muddy after rain. A heavy dixie to 
be carried from top of Weymouth Avenue, 
up via Trafalgar Square, and 76 Street to 
the platoon holding the trench at the Loop.) 

7.45 A.M. Get your own breakfast. 

9 A.M. Turn out for working-party; spend 
morning filling sandbags for building tra- 
verses in Maple Eedoubt. 

11.30 A.M. Carry dinner up to front com- 
pany. Same as 6.30 A.M. 

1 P.M. Get your own dinner. 

1 to 4 P.M. (With luck) rest. 

4 P.M. Carry tea up to front company. 

5 P.M. Get your own tea. 

5.15 to 7.15 P.M. (With luck) rest. 

7.15 P. M. Clean rifle. 

7.30 P.M. Stand to. Eifle inspected. 

Jones puts his big ugly boot out suddenly, 
just after you have finished cleaning rifle, 



114 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

and upsets it. Result — ^mud all over barrel 
and nose-cap. 

8.30 P.M. Stand down. Have to clean rifle 
again and show platoon sergeant. 

9 P.M. Turn out for working-party till 12 
midnight in front line. 

12 midnight. Hot soup. 

12.15 A.M. Dug-out at last till 

4 A.M. Stand to. 

And so on for three days and nights. This is 
really quite a moderate programme: it is one 
that you would aim at for your men. But there 
are disturbing elements that sometimes compel 
you to dock a man's afternoon rest, for instance. 
A couple of canisters block Watling Street ; you 
rmist send a party of ten men and an N.C.O. to 
clear it at once : or you suddenly have to supply 
a party to carry ''footballs" up to Rue Albert 
for the trench-mortar man. The Adjutant is 
sorry ; he could not let you know before ; but they 
have just come up to the Citadel, and must be 
unloaded at once. So you have to find the men 
for this on the spur of the moment. And so it 
goes on night and day. Oh, it's not all rum and 
sleep, is life in Maple Redoubt. 

Three days and nights in support, and then 
come the three days in the front line. 

Now we will take it that "B" Company is 
holding from 80 A to the Lewis-gun position to 
the right of 76 Street. You will notice at once 



BOIS FEANQAIS TEENCHES 115 

that almost the whole of No Man's Land in front 
of this sector of trenches is a chain of mine 
craters. No one can have much idea of a crater 
until he actually sees one. I can best describe it 
as a hollow like a quarry or chalk hole about fifty 
yards in diameter and some forty or fifty feet 
deep. (They vary in size, of course, but that is 
about the average.) The sides, which are steep- 
ish, and vary in angle between thirty and sixty 
degrees, are composed of a very fine thin soil, 
which is, in point of fact, a thick sediment of 
powdered soil that has returned to earth after 
a tempestuous ascent into the sky. A large mine 
always causes a *'lip" above the ground level, 
which appears in section somewhat like this: — 



^r^*ijmmmm'^^\ jC^O'SSam .It^i, 




There is usually water in the bottom of the 
deeper craters. When a series of craters is 
formed, running into one another, you get a 
very uneven floor that appears in lengthwise 
section thus: — 



yvuitd 



_'8pli>9«_ _ _ . _ *'i'^- 



The dotted line is the ground level : the uneven 
line is the course that would be taken by a man 
walking along the bottom of the chain of craters, 



116 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

and keeping in the centre. Actually, of course, 
(on patrol) one would not keep in the centre 
where the crater contained water, but would 
skirt the water by going to one side of it. The 
''bridges" are important, as they are naturally 
the easiest way across the craters; a bombing 
patrol, for instance, could crawl over a bridge, 
without having to go right down to the bottom 
level, and (which is more important) will not 
have a steep climb up over very soft and spongy 
soil. These bridges are the "lips" of the larger 




craters where they join the smaller ; looking at 
a crater-chain in plan X is a "bridge," whereas 
Y and Z are "lips" rising above ground level. 
This crater-chain being understood, the system 
of sentries is easily grasped. Originally, before 
mining commenced, our front line ran (roughly) 
from left to right along Eue Albert up 80 A 
Street and along to the top of 76 Street in a 
straight line. Then began the great game of 
mining under the enemy parapet and blowing 
him up; and its corollary countermining, or 
blowing up the enemy's mine galleries before he 
reached your parapet. Such is the game as 



BOIS FRANgAIS TEENCHES 117 

played underground by the tunnelling com- 
panies, E.E. To the infantry belongs the work 
(if not blown up) of consolidating the crater, 
whether made by your or an enemy mine, that is 
to say, of seizing your side of the crater and 
guarding it by bombing-posts in such a way as 
to prevent the enemy from doing anything ex- 
cept hold his side of the crater. 




^ermcLn -^ront lirnt 



Our Jronl" lit^e. 



For instance, take a single crater, caused by 
us blowing up the German gallery before it 
reaches our parapet. If we do nothing, the 
enemy digs a trench into the crater at A, and can 
get into the crater any time he likes and bomb 
our front line, and return to his trench unseen. 
This, of course, never happens, as we dig a sap 
into the crater from our side, and the result is 
stale-mate ; each side can see into the crater, so 
neither can go into it. 

That is all. 83 B, 81 A, the Matterhorn sap, 
the Loop, the Fort — they are all saps up to 
crater-edges, in some cases joined up along the 
edge (as between 83 B and 83 A, or at the Loop 



118 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

and the Fort.) And these saps are held by 
bombing-posts. Where there are no craters in 
front (as, for instance, between the Fort and the 
Loop), there the trench is held by sentry groups 
in the ordinary way. The most important bomb- 
ing-posts are at the ''bridges," which are the 
points that most want guarding. 

Each platoon has so many posts to ''find" 
men for. No. 5 Platoon has three posts between 
the Lewis-gun position and the top of 76 Street ; 
No. 6 finds two in the Fort and one between the 
Fort and the Loop ; there is another post before 
you reach the Loop, found by No. 7, who also 
finds two in the Loop itself ; while No. 8 finds the 
Matterhorn post and the top of 80 A. All these 
posts are composed of one bomber, who has a box 
of bombs with him and his rifle without bayonet 
fixed, and one bayonet man. There is no special 
structure about a "post"; it is just the spot in 
the trench where the sentries are placed. Some- 
times one or two posts could be dispensed with 
by day, if one post could with a periscope watch 
the ground in front of both. The sentry groups 
are relieved every two hours by the platoon 
N.C.O. on trench duty. There is always an 
N.C.O. on trench duty, going the rounds of his 
sentry groups, in every platoon ; and one officer 
going round the groups in the company. Thus 
is secured the endless chain of unwinking eyes 
that stretches from Dunkirk to Switzerland. 



BOIS FRANQAIS TRENCHES 119 

There were two Lewis guns to every company. 
One had a position at the Fort, covering the 
ground between the Port and the Loop ; the other 
was just to the right of 80A, where it had a 
good position sweeping the craters. The Lewis- 
gun teams found their sentries independently of 
the platoons, and had their dug-outs. A nice 
compact little affair was a Lewis;gun_team ; al- 
ways very snug and self-contained. 

Company Headquarters were at Trafalgar 
Square, though later we changed to a dug-out 
half-way up 76 Street. Each platoon had a dug- 
out about fifty yards behind the front line, and 
as far as possible one arranged to get the men 
a few hours ' sleep in them every day ; but only 
a certain percentage at a time. There were four 
stretcher-bearers and two signallers also at Tra- 
falgar Square. Also a permanent wiring-party 
had its quarters here, a corporal and five men ; 
they made up ''concertina" or ''gooseberry" 
wire by day, and were out three or four hours 
every night putting it out. They were, of course, 
exempt from other platoon duties. Each platoon 
had a pioneer to attend to sanitary arrange- 
ments, and other odd jobs such as fetching up 
soup; and each platoon had an orderly ready 
to take messages. At Company Headquarters, 
besides the officers' servants, were the company 
orderly, and company officers' cook. An officer 



120 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

on trench duty was accompanied by his servant 
as orderly. 

This was the distribution of the company in 
the front line. Every morning from 9 to 12 all 
men not on sentry worked at repairing and im- 
proving the trenches; and the same for four 
hours during the night. Work done to strength- 
en the parapet can only be done by night. 
Every night wire was put out. Every night 
a patrol went out. Every day one ''stood 
to" arms for an hour before dawn, and 
an hour after dusk. And day and night there 
was an intermittent stinging and buzzing of 
black-winged instruments between the opposing 
trenches. Of shells I have already spoken; next 
in deadliness were rifle-grenades, which are 
bombs with a rod attachment that is put down 
the barrel of an ordinary rifle. Four of these 
rifles are stood in a rack fixed to the ground, and 
fired by a string from a few yards away, at a 
very high trajectory. They are a very deadly 
weapon, as you cannot see them dropping on 
to you. Then there is a multiform genus called 
"trench-mortar," being projectiles of all kinds 
and shapes lobbed over from close range. The 
canister was the most loathed. It was simply 
a tin oil-can, the size of a lady's muff (large) ; 
one heard a thud, and watched the beast rising, 
rising, then stationary, it seemed, in mid-air, 
and then come toppling down, down, down on 



BOIS FRANQAIS TRENCHES 121 

top of one with a crash — three second's silence 
— and then a most colossal explosion, blowing 
everything in its vicinity to atoms. These can- 
isters were loathed by the men with a most 
personal and intense aversion. Yet they were 
really not nearly so dangerous as rifle-grenades, 
as one had time to dodge them very often, un- 
less enfiladed in a communication trench. They 
were, moreover very local in their effects. A 
shell has splinters that spread far and wide; a 
trench-mortar is a clumsy monster with a thin 
skin, no splinters, and an abominable, noisy, 
vulgar way of making the most of itself. * ' Sau- 
sages" were another but milder form of the 
vulgar trench-mortar; aerial torpedoes were 
daintier people with wings, who looked so cher- 
ubic as they came sailing over, that one almost 
forgot their deadly stinging powers; they, too, 
were a species of trench-mortar. 

It is natural to write lightly of these things ; 
yet they were no light matters. They were the 
instruments of death that took their daily toll 
of lives. In this chapter describing the system 
and routine of ordinary trench warfare, I have 
tried to prepare the canvas for several pictures 
I have drawn in bold bare lines; now I am 
putting in a wash of colour, the atmosphere of 
Death. 

Sometimes we forgot it in the interest of the 
present activity; sometimes we saw it face to 



122 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

face, without a qualm ; but always it was there 
with its relentless overhanging presence, dulling 
our spirits, wearing out our lives. The papers 
are always full of Tommy smiling : Bairnsf ather 
has immortalized his indomitable humour. Yes, 
it is true. We laugh, we smile. But for an hour 
of laughter, there are how many hours of weari- 
ness, strain, and grim agony! It is great that 
Tommy's laughter has been immortalized; but 
do not forget that its greatness lies in this, that 
it was uttered beneath the canopy of ever-im- 
pending Death. 



CHAPTER VII 
MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 

IT must not be imagined that I at once grasped 
all the essential details of onr trench system, 
as I have tried to put them concisely in the 
preceding chapter. On the contrary, it was only 
very gradually that I accumulated my intimate 
knowledge of our maze of trenches, only by 
degrees that I learnt the lie of the land, and 
only by personal patrolling that I learnt the in- 
terior economy of the craters. At first the front 
line, with its loops and bombing-posts, and por- 
tions "patrolled only," its sand-bag dumps, its 
unexpected visions of R.E.'s scurrying likebolted 
rabbits from mine-shafts, its sudden jerk round 
a corner that brought you in full view of the 
German parapet across a crater that made you 
gaze fascinated several seconds before you real- 
ised that you should be stooping low, as here 
was a bad bit of trench that wanted deepening 
at once and had not been cleared properly after 
being blown in last night — all this, I say, was at 
first a most perplexing labyrinth. It was only 
gradually that I solved its mysteries, and dis- 
covered an order in its complexity. 

123 



124 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

I will give a few more extracts from my diary, 
some of which seem to me now delightfully 
naive ! Here they are, though. 

"2nd Feb., 1916. In the trenches. Every- 
thing very quiet. We are in support, in a place 
called Maple Redoubt, on the reverse slope of 
a big ridge. Good dug-outs (sic), and a view 
behind, over a big expanse of chalk-downs, which 
is most exhilarating. A day with blue sky and 
a tingle of frost. Being on the reverse slope, you 
can walk about anywhere, and so can see every- 
thing. Have just been up in the front trenches, 
which are over the ridge, and a regular, or 
rather very irregular, rabbit-warren. The 
Boche generally only about thirty to forty yards 
away. The trenches are dry, that is the glorious 
thing. Dry. Just off to pow-wow to the new 
members of my platoon. ' ' 

Here I will merely remark that the "good" 
dug-out in which we were living was blown 
in by a 4.2 shell exactly four days later, killing 
one officer and wounding the other two badly. 
With regard to the state of the trenches, it was 
dry weather, and "when they were dry they were 
dry, and when they were wet they were wet!" 

' ' 3rd Feb. Another beautiful February morn- 
ing. Slept quite well, despite rats overhead. 
O'Brien and Dixon awfully dull and heavy; 
can't think why. Everything outside is full of 



MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 125 

life ; there is a crispness in the air, and a delight- 
ful sharp shadow and light contrast as you look 
up Maple Redoubt. 

Meditations on coldness, and how it unmans 
— on hunger, and how it weakens — on the art 
of feeding and warming, and how women realise 
this, while men do not usually know there ia 
any art in keeping house at all! 

Meditations, too, on the stupidity, slowness, 
and clumsiness of officers' servants. 

Dixon's snores make me bucked with life; so, 
too, this same clumsiness of the servants. Lewis 
came in just now. 'Why are you waiting, 
Lewis ? ' I asked. ' I thought Watson was wait- 
ing to-day.' (This after a great strafing of 
servants for general stupidity and incompe- 
tence.) 'None of the others dared come in, sir,' 
he replied, in his high piping voice, and a broad 
grin on his face. Oh! they are good fellows! 
Why be fed up with life? Wliy long faces ? Long 
faces, these are the bad things of life, the things 
to fight against. . . . " 

So did my vision of the Third Army School 
bear fruit, I see now! 

* ' Philosophy from the trenches. Does it cover 
everything? Does it explain the fellows I passed 
this morning being carried to the Aid Post, one 
with blood and orange iodine all over his face, 
and the other wounded in both legs ? It always 



126 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

comes as a surprise when the bombs and shells 
produce wounds and death. ... 

Watched a mine go up this evening — great 
yellow-brown mass of smoke, followed by a 
beautiful under-cloud of orange-pink that 
steamed up in a soft creamy way. No firing 
and shelling followed as at Givenchy. . . . 

Take over from 'A' to-morrow morning. 

10 P.M. Great starlight. Jupiter and Venus 
both up, and the Great Bear and Orion glitter- 
ing hard and clean in the steely sky. I wish I 
had a Homer. I am sure he has just one perfect 
epithet for Orion on a night like this. I shall 
read Homer in a new light after these times. I 
begin to understand the spirit of the Homeric 
heroes; it was all words, words, words before. 
Now I see. Billet life — ^where is that in the 
Iliad? In the tents, of course. And the eating 
and drinking, the 'word that puts heart into 
men,' the cool stolid facing of death, all those 
gruesome details of wounds and weapons, all is 
being enacted here every day exactly as in the 
Homeric age. Human nature has not altered. 

And did not Homer tell, too, how utterly 'fed 
up* they were with it all? Can one not read 
between the lines and see, besides the glamour of 
physical courage, the strain, the weariness, the 
* fed-upness ' of them all ! I think so. ' Noaxog ' 
is a word I remember so well. They were all 



MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 127 

longing for the day of their return. As here, 
the big fights were few and far between ; and as 
here, there were the months and years of wait- 
ing. 

And on them, too, the stars looked down, wink- 
ing alike at Greeks and Trojans ; just as to-night 
thousands of German and British faces, dull- 
witted or sharp, sour-faced or smiling, sad or 
happy, are gazing up and wondering if there is 
any wisdom in the world yet. 

Four thousand years ago? And all the time 
the stars in the Great Bear have been hurtling 
apart at thousands of miles an hour, and the 
human eye sees no difference. No wonder they 
wink at us. . . . 

And our mothers, and wives . . . the 
women-folk — Euripides understood their views 
on war. Ten years they waited. . . . 

Must go to bed. D these scuffling rats." 

Frequently I found my thoughts flying back 
through the years, and more especially on star- 
lit nights, or on a breathless spring evening, to 
the Greeks and Romans. Life out here was so 
primitive ; so much a matter of eating and drink- 
ing, and digging, and sleeping, and so full of 
the elements, of cold, and frost, and wind, and 
rain; there were so many definite and positive 
physical goods and bads, that the barrier of an 
unreal civilisation was completely swept away. 



128 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

Under the stars and in a trench you were as 
good as any Homeric warrior ; but you were little 
better. And so you felt you understood him. 
And here I will add that it was especially at 
sunset that the passionate desire to live would 
sometimes surge up, so intense, so clamorous, 
that it swept every other feeling clean aside for 
the time. 

But to return to Maple Redoubt, or rather to 
Gibraltar, where the next entry in my diary 
was written. 

* * 6th Feb. Bather an uncomfortable dug-out 
in Gibraltar. Yesterday was a divine day, I 
sat up in 'the Fort' most of the day, watching 
the bombardment. Blue sky, on the top of a 
high chalk down ; larks singing ; and a real sunny 
dance in the air. We watched four aeroplanes 
sail over, amid white puffs of shrapnel; and a 
German 'plane came over. I could see the black 
crosses very plainly with my glasses. Most 
godlike it must have been up there on such a 
morning. I felt very pleased with life, and did 
two sketches, one of Sawyer, another of Rich- 
ards. ... 

A dull thud, and then 'there goes another,' 
shouts someone. It reminds me of Bill the lizard 
coming out of the chimney-pot in Alice in Won- 
derland. Everyone gazes and waits for the 
crash! Toppling through the sky comes a big 



MOEE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 129 

tin oil-can followed immediately by another; 
both fall and explode with a tremendous din, 
sending up a fifty-foot spurt of black earth and 
flying debris, while down the wind comes the scud 
of sand-bag fluff and the smell of powder. This 
alternated with the 4.2 's, which come over with 
a scream and wait politely a second or two 
before bursting so inelegantly." (I seem to 
have got mixed up a bit here : it was usually the 
canisters that "waited.") 

''The mining is a great mystery to me at 
present. One part of the trench is only patrol- 
led, as the Boche may 'blow' there at any mo- 
ment. I must say it is an uncomfortable feeling, 
this liability to sudden projection skywards! 
The first night I had a sort of nightmare all the 
time, and kept waking up, and thinking about a 
mine going up under one. The second night I 
was too tired to have nightmares. 

The rats swarm. I woke up last night, and 
saw one sitting on Edwards, licking its whiskers. 
Then it ran on to the box by the candle. It was 
a pretty brown fellow, rather attractive, I 
thought. I felt no repulsion whatever at sight 
of it. . . . 

The front trenches are a maze. I cannot dis- 
entagle all the loops and saps ; and now we are 
cut off from 'C,' as the front trench is all blown 
in ; one has to have a connecting patrol that goes 



130 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

via Rue Albert. A very weird affair. The only- 
consolation is that the Boche would be more 
lost if he got in ! 

I cannot help feeling that 'B' company has 
been very lucky. We were in Maple Redoubt, 
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; everything 
was quite quiet with us, but 'D' had seven casu- 
alties in the front trench. On Friday we re- 
lieved *A,' and all Saturday the enemy bom- 
barded a spot just behind our company's left, 
putting over 4.2 's and canisters all day long 
from 9 A.M. onwards, and absolutely smash- 
ing up our trenches there. Then Trafalgar 
Square has been rather a hot shop : two of our 
own whizz-bangs fell short there, and several 
rifle grenades fell very close — also, splinters of 
the 4.2 's came humming round, ending with little 
plops quite close. O'Brien picked up a large 
splinter that fell in the trench right outside the 
dug-out. Again, at * stand-down, ' when Dixon, 
Clark, Edwards, and I were standing talking to- 
gether at the top of 76 Street, two canisters fell 
most alarmingly near us, about ten yards be- 
hind, covering us with dirt. Yet we have not 
had a single casualty. 

To-day we were to have been relieved by the 
Manchesters at midday, but this morning at 
'stand to' we heard the time had been altered 
to 8 A.M. 'B' was duly relieved, and No. 5 
Platoon had just changed gum-boots, while 6, 



MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 131 

7, and 8 were sitting at tlie corner of Maple Re- 
doubt enthralled in the same process, when over 
came two canisters, one smashing in Old Kent 
Road, down which we had just come, and the 
other falling right into an * A' Company dug-out 
twenty yards to my left, killing two men and 
wounding three others, one probably mortally. 
And now I have just had the news that the Man- 
chesters have had twenty-three casualties to-day, 
including three officers, their R.S.M., and a com- 
pany sergeant-major." 

As I read some of these sentences, true in 
every detail as they are, I cannot help smil- 
ing. For it was no "bombardment" that took 
place on our left all day ; it was merely the Ger- 
mans potting one of our trench-mortar posi- 
tions ! And Trafalgar Square was really very 
quiet, that first time in. But what I notice most 
is the way in which I record the fall of individual 
canisters and rifle grenades, even if they were 
twenty yards away! Never a six days in, lat- 
terly, that we did not have to clear Old Kent 
Road and Watling Street two or three times; 
and we used to fire off a hundred rifle grenades 
a day very often, and received as many in re- 
turn always. And the record of casualties one 
did not keep. We were lucky, it is true. Once, 
and once only, after, did "B" Company go in 
and come out without a casualty. Those first 



132 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

two days in Maple Redoubt, when ''everything 
was quiet," were the most deceitful harbingers 
of the future that could have been imagined. 
''Why long faces?" I could write. The Man- 
chesters had a ruder but a truer introduction 
to the Bois Frangais trenches, and especially to 
Maple Redoubt. For the dug-outs were abomin- 
able ; not one was shell-proof ; and there was no 
parados or traverse for a hundred and fifty 
yards. The truth of the matter was that these 
trenches had been some of the quietest in the 
line; for some reason or other, when our Divi- 
sion took them over, they immediately changed 
face about, and took upon themselves the task 
of growing in a steady relentless crescendo into 
one of the hottest sectors in the line. 

On the 22nd of February the Germans raided 
our trenches on the left opposite Fricourt. They 
did not get much change out of it. I can re- 
member at least four raids close on our left or 
right during those four months; they never 
actually came over on our front, but we usually 
came in for the bombardment. The plan is to 
isolate the sector to be raided by an intense 
bombardment on that sector, and on the sec- 
tors on each side; to "lift" the barrage, or 
curtain of fire, at a given moment off the front 
line of the sector raided "what time" (as the 
old phrase goes) they come over, enter the 
trench if they can, make a few prisoners, and 



MOEE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 133 

get back quickly. All the while the sectors to 
right and left are being bombarded heavily. It 
was this isolating bombardment that our front 
line was receiving, while we were left unmo- 
lested in 71 North. All this I did not know at 
the time. Here is my record of it. 

"25 Feb., 1916. It is snowing hard. We are 
in a very comfortable tubular dug-out in 71 
North. This dug-out is the latest pattern, being 
on the twopenny- tube model; very warm, and 
free from draughts. It is not shell-proof, but 
then shells never seem to come near here. 

Let me try and record the raid on our left on 
the 22nd, before I forget it. 

The Manehesters were in the front line and 
Maple Redoubt. During the afternoon the 
Boche started putting heavies on to Maple Re- 
doubt, and the corner of Canterbury Avenue. 
'Bad luck on the Manchesters again,' we all 
agreed — and turned in for tea. There was a 
wonderful good fire going. 

' By Jove, they are going it, ' I said, as we sat 
down and Gray brought in the teapot. Thud! 
Thud! Thud — thud! We simply had to go out 
and watch. Regular coal-boxes, sending up 
great columns of mud, and splinters humming 
and splashing right over us, a good hundred 
yards or more. 'Better keep inside,' from 
Dixon. 



134 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

We had tea, and things seemed to quiet down. 

Then about six o'clock the bombardment got 
louder, and our guns woke up like fun. 'Vee- 
bm . . . vee-bm' from our whizz-bangs going 
over, and then the machine-guns began on our 
left. Simultaneously, in came Eichards (Dix- 
on's servant) with an excited air. *Gas,' he 
exclaimed. Instinctively I felt for my gas 
helmet. Meanwhile Dixon had gone outside. 
'Absurd,' he said in a quiet voice. 'The wind's 
wrong. Who brought that message?' 

Then up came a telephone orderly. I heard 
him running on the hard road. 'Stand to,' he 
said breathlessly, and Dixon went off to the 
*phone with him. Nicolson appeared in a gas 
helmet. I was looking for my pipe, but could 
not find it. Then at last I went out without it. 

Outside it was getting dark. It was a fairly 
nippy air. The bombardment was going strong. 
All the sky was flickering, and our guns were 
screaming over. 'Crump, crump,' the Boche 
shells were bursting up by Maple Eedoubt. 
'Scream, scream,' went our guns ba^k; andi 
right overhead our big guns went griding. 

All this I noticed gradually. My first im- 
pression was the strong smell of gas helmets in 
the cold air. The gas alarm had spread, and 
some of the men had their helmets on. I felt 
undecided. I simply did not know, whether the 
men should wear them or not. What was hap- 



MOEE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 135 

pening? I wished Dixon would come back. Ah ! 
there he was. What news? 

*I can't get through,' he said, 'but we shall 
get a message all right if necessary. ' 

'What's happening?' I asked. 'Do you think 
they are coming over ? ' 

*No. It won't last long, I expect. Still, just 
let's see if the men have got their emergency 
rations with them. 

A few had not, and were sent into the dug- 
outs for them. Gas helmets were ordered back 
into their satchels. 

*No possibility of gas,' said Dixon; 'wind's 
dead south.' 

I was immensely bucked now. There was a 
feeling of tenseness and bracing-up. I felt the 
importance of essentials — rifles and bayonets in 
good order — the men fit, and able to run. This 
was the real thing, somehow. 

I made Lewis go in and get my pipe. I found 
I had no pouch, and stuffed loose baccy in my 
pocket. 

I realised I had not thought out what I would 
do in case of attack. I did not know what was 
happening. I was glad Dixon was there . . . 

It was great, though, to hear the continuous 
roar of the cannonade, and the machine-guns 
rapping, not for five minutes, but all the time. 
That I think was the most novel sound of all. 
No news. That was a new feature. A Man- 



136 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

Chester officer came up and said all their com- 
munications were cut with the left. 

I was immensely bucked, especially with my 
pipe. Our servants were good friends to have 
behind us, and Dixon was a man in his element. 
The men were all cool. 'Germans have broken 
through,' I heard one man say. 'Where?' said 
someone rather excitedly. 'In the North Sea,* 
was the stolid reply. 

At last the cannonade developed into a roar 
on our left, and we realized that any show was 
there, and not on our sector. Then up came the 
quartermaster with some boots for Dixon and 
me, and we all went into the dug-out, where was 
a splendid fire. And we stayed there, and cer- 
tain humorous remarks from the quartermaster 
suddenly turned my feelings, and I felt that the 
tension was gone, the thing was over ; and that 
outside the bombardment was slackening. In 
half an hour it was 'stand down' at 7.40. 

I was immensely bucked. I knew I should be 
all right now in an attack. And the cannon- 
ade at night was a magnificent sight. Of course 
we had not been shelled, though some whizz- 
bangs had been fired fifty yards behind us just 
above 'Redoubt A,' trying for the battery just 
over the hill. 

My chief impression was, 'This is the real 
thing. ' You must know your men. They await 
clear orders, that is all. It was dark. I remem- 



MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 137 

ber thinking of Brigade and Division behind, 
invisible, seeing nothing, yet alone knowing 
what was happening. No news, that was inter- 
esting. An entirely false rumour came along, 
'All dug-outs blown in in Maple Redoubt.' 

I had sent Evans to Bray to try and buy 
coal : he returned in the middle of the bombard- 
ment with a long explanation of why he had 
been unable to get it. 

'Afterwards,' I said. Somehow coal could 
wait. 

All the while I have been writing this, there 
is a regular blizzard outside." 

Such is my record of my first bombardment. 
The Manchesters, who were in the front line, 
suffered rather heavily, but not in Maple Re- 
doubt. No dug-outs were smashed in at all 
there, though Canterbury Avenue was blocked 
in two places, and Old Kent Road in one. The 
Germans came over from just north of Fri- 
court, but only a very few reached our trenches, 
and of them about a dozen were made prisoners, 
and the rest killed. It was a ' ' bad show ' ' from 
the enemy point of view. 

And now I will leave my diary. These first 
impressions are interesting enough, but later 
the entries became more and more spasmodic 
and usually introspective. The remaining 
chapters are not exactly, though very nearly, 
chronological. From February 6th to March 



138 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

8th I was Sniping and Intelligence officer to 
the battalion. Chapters VIII, IX, and XII 
describe incidents in that period. Then on 
March 8th Captain Dixon was transferred as 

Second-in-Command to our th Battalion, 

and on that date I took over the command of 
"B" Company, which I held until I was 
wounded on the 7th of June. These were the 
three months in which I learnt the strain of 
responsibility as well as the true tragedy of 
this war. 

During all these four months I was fortunate 
in having as a commanding officer a really great 
soldier. The CO. had inaugurated his arrival 
by a vigorous emphasis of the following prin- 
ciple: "No Man's Land belongs to US; if the 
Boche dare show his face in it, he's going to be 

d d sorry for it. We are top-dogs, and if 

there is any strafing, the last word must always 
be ours." Such was the policy of the man 
behind me during those four months. Mean- 
while, from eight to midnight every night, 
trenches were being deepened, the parapet 
thickened, and fire-steps and traverses being 
put in the front line, which had hitherto been 
a maze of hasty improvisations; barbed wire 
was put out at an unprecedented pace, and 
patrols were going out every night. If things 
went wrong, there was the devil to pay; but if 
things went well, one was left entirely un- 



MORE FIRST IMPRESSIONS 139 

molested; and if there was a bombardment on, 
the orders came quick and clear. And any com- 
pany commander will know that those three 
qualities in a commanding officer are worth 
almost .anything, 



CHAPTER Vin 
SNIPING 



THE snow was coming down in big white 
flakes, whirling and dancing against a 
gray sky. I shivered as I looked out 
from the top of the dug-out steps in Maple Re- 
doubt. It was half-past seven, a good hour 
since the snipers had reported to me before go- 
ing to their posts. It was quite dark then, for 
a sniper must always be up on his post a good 
hour before dawn to catch the enemy working 
a few minutes too late. It is so easy to miss 
those first faint glimmerings of twilight when 
you are just finishing off an interesting piece 
of wiring in "No Man's Land." I speak from 
experience. For so a sniper got me. 

"U — u — u — gh," I shuddered, ''it's no good 
keeping the men on in this"; so, putting my 
whiskey-bottle full of rum in my haversack, I 
set off up Old Kent Road to visit my posts and 
withdraw the men pro tern. I expected to find 
the fellows unutterably cold, shrivelled up, and 
bored. To my surprise, at No. 1 post Thomas 

140 



SNIPING 141 

and Everton were in a state of huge excitement, 
eyes glowing, and faces full of life. There 
seemed to be a great rivalry, too, for the pos- 
session of the rifle. For the snipers always 
worked in pairs : a man cannot gaze out at the 
opposing lines with acute interest for more than 
about half an hour on end; so I used to work 
them by pairs, and give them shifts according 
to the weather. In summer you could put a 
pair on for four hours, and they would work 
well, taking half -hour shifts ; but in cold weather 
two hours was quite enough. 

*' We've got them, sir," from 75 Thomas; 
"they was working in the trench over there — 
by all them blue sand-bags, sir — four of them, 
sir — " 

** Yes, and I saw him throw up his arms, sir," 
put in Everton, excited for the first time I have 
ever seen him, and trying to push Thomas out 
of the box, and have another look. But Thomas 
would not be pushed. 

"Splendid," I said: "by Jove, that's good 
work. Can I see?" But it was snowing hard, 
and I could see very little. I tried the tele- 
scope. "Put it right up to your eye, sir," said 
Thomas, forgetting that I had myself taught 
him this in billets as he vainly tried to see 
through it holding it about four inches from his 
face, and declaring that he could see everything 
just as well with his own eyes! 



142 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

"Yes, I think I see where you mean," said I; 
"up by that sand-bag dump. There's a mine- 
shaft there, and they were probably some of 
their R.E.'s piling up sand-bags, or emptying 
them out. I believe that is what they usually 
do now, fill the sand-bags below in their gal- 
leries, bring them up, empty them, and use the 
same ones again." 

Thomas and Everton gaped at this. It had 
not occurred to them to consider that the Boche 
had R.E.'s. They were of the unimaginative 
class of snipers, who "saw, did, and reported," 
and on the whole I preferred them to those 
who saw, and immediately "concluded." For 
their conclusions were usually wrong. To men 
like Thomas I was, I think, looked upon as one 
who had some slightly supernatural knowledge 
of the German lines ; he did not realize that by 
careful compass-bearings I knew the exact 
ground visible from his post, and that my map 
of the German lines, showing every trench as 
revealed by aeroplane photographs, was ac- 
curate to a yard. He was like a retriever, who 
keeps to heel, noses out his bird with unerring 
skill, and brings it in with the softest of mouths ; 
yet the cumiing and strategy he leaves to his 
master, who is decidedly his inferior in nose 
and mouth. So 75 Thomas could see and shoot 
far better than I ; but it was I who thought out 
the strategy of the shoot. 



SNIPING 143 

"Well," said I, as I doled out a rather more 

liberal rum ration than usual, 'Hhat's d 

good work, anyway. Two you got, you say? 
Not sure about the second? Anyway you had 
two good shots, and remember what I told you, 
a sniper only shoots to kill. So two it's going 
to be, anyhow." (They both grinned at this, 
which was the nearest they could get to a wink.) 
"I'm very pleased about it. Now it's not much 
good staying up here in this thick snow, so you 
can go off till I send word to your dug-out for 
you to go on again. ' ' 

I turned to go away, thinking that the other 
posts, rumless, and in all probability quarryless, 
must be in a state of exasperating coldness by 
now. But Thomas and Everton did not move. 
There was something wanted. 

"Well, what is it?" 

"Please sir, can we stay on here a bit? 
P'raps one of those R.E. fellows may come 
back for something." 

"Good heavens, yes," I said, "stay on as 
long as you like," and smiled as I made off to 
my other posts. (Later I used to get the snipers 
to report to me coming off their posts, and get 
their rum ration then ; as I found it gave a bad 
appearance and damaged the reputation of the 
snipers when people saw me going about with 
the nose of a bottle of ' ' O.V.H. ' ' whiskey stick- 



144 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

ing out of my haversack!) There, as I ex- 
pected, I found the men blue and bored. 

**You can't see nothing to-day, sir, at all," 
was the sentence with which I was immediately 
greeted. Even the rum seemed to inspire very 
little outward enthusiasm. 

"You can go off to your dug-outs till I send 
for you," I replied, carefully corking the bottle 
and not looking at them while I spoke: '^it you 
like," I added after a pause, looking up. But 
the post was empty. 

That afternoon I was up on No. 1 post, with 
a sniper who was new to the work. It was still 
freezing, but the snow-clouds had cleared right 
away, and the wind had dropped. There was a 
tingle in the air; everything was as still as 
death; the sun was shining from a very blue 
sky, and throwing longer and longer shadows 
in the snow as the afternoon wore on. It was a 
valuable afternoon, the enemy's wire showing 
up very clearly against the white ground, and I 
was showing the new sniper how to search the 
trench systematically from left to right, noting 
the exact position of anything that looked like 
a loophole, or steel-plate, and especially the 
thickness of the wire, what kind, whether it was 
gray and new, or rusty- red and old; whether 
there were any gaps in it, and where. All these 
things a sniper should note every morning when 
he comes on to his post. Gaps are important 



SNIPING 145 

as patrols must come out through gaps, and the 
Lewis gunners should know these, and be ready 
to fire at them if a patrol is heard thereabouts 
in No Man's Land. Similarly, old gaps closed 
up must be reported. 

It was very still. ''Has the war stopped?" 
one felt inclined to ask. No, there is the sound 
of shells exploding far away on the right some- 
where; in the French lines it must be, some- 
where about Frise. Then a "phut" from just 
opposite, and a long whining "we'oo — ^we'oo — 
we'oo — ^we'-oo . . . bzung, " and a rifle-grenade 
burst with a snarl about a hundred yards be- 
hind. Then another, and another, and another. 
"They're trying for Trafalgar Square," said 
I. No. 1 post was a little to the right of the 
top of 76 Street. I waited. There were no 
more. It was just about touch and go whether 
we replied. If they went on up to about a dozen, 
the chances were that the bombing-corporal in 
charge of our rifle-grenade battery would rouse 
himself, and loose off twenty in retaliation. But, 
no. Perhaps the German had repented him of 
the evil of desecrating the peace of such an 
afternoon ; or perhaps he was just ranging, and 
had an observer away on the flank somewhere 
to watch the effect of his shooting. Anyway 
he did not fire again, and the afternoon slumber 
was resumed, till the evening "strafe" came 
on in due course. 



146 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

"I can see something over on the left, sir. 
It is a man 's head, sir ! Look ! ' ' 

I looked. Yes. 

''No," I almost shouted. ''It's a dummy 
head. Just have a look. And don't whatever 
you do, fire." 

Sure enough, a cardboard head appeared over 
the front parapet opposite, with a grey cap on. 
Slowly it disappeared. Without the telescope 
it would have been next to impossible to see it 
was not a man. Again it appeared, then slowly 
sank out of view. It was well away on the left, 
just in front of where the "R.E.'s" had been 
hit at dawn. For this post was well-sited, hav- 
ing an oblique field of vision, as all good snip- 
ing-posts should. That is to say, they should 
be sited something like this: 




(^Cruitou ■OufspOr)' luiki 



Vi— p|Mju*eu* ^ro»>> lint 






-A:^ 



WolPo»t 




•«• OtW Jtff»\l*Uu^^ 



••..8 



A-sl «ait 



The ideal is to have all your posts in the 
supports, and not in the front line, and at about 



SNIPING 147 

three hundred yards from the enemy front line. 
Of course if the ground slopes away behind 
you, you cannot get positions in the supports 
unless there are buildings to make posts in. By 
getting an oblique view, you gain two advan- 
tages : 

(a) If A gets a shot at C, C's friends look 

out for ''that d d sniper opposite," and look 

in the direction of B, who is carefully concealed 
from direct view. 

(b) A's loophole is invisible from direct ob- 
servation by D, as it is pointing slantwise at C. 

All this I now explained to my new sniper. 

"But why not smash up his old dummy, sir? 
Might put the wind up the fellow working it. ' ' 

"No," I explained. "Look at the paper 
again. (I had drawn it out for him, as I have 
on the previous page.) Thomas shot at those 
R.E.'s this morning, don't you see? He was 
here (B), and they're at D. Now they're try- 
ing to find you, or the man who shot their pal; 
and you can bet anything you like they've got 
a man watching either at C or right away on 
the left to spot you if you fire at the dummy. 
No. Lie doggo, and see if you can spot that 
man on the flank. He's probably got a peri- 
scope." 

"Can't see him, sir," at length. 

* * No. Never mind ; he 's probably far too well 



148 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

concealed. Always remember the Boche is as 
clever as you, and sometimes cleverer." 

"Ah, but he wants me to shoot, sir, and I 
won't," came the cheery answer. "What about 
smashing up his old dummy T ' I reminded him. 
His face fell. He had forgotten his old un- 
sniper-like self already. "Never mind," said 
I. "Now when Thomas and Everton come up 
here, mind you tell them all about the dummy ; 
and tell Thomas from me that the Boohe 
doesn't spend his time dummy-wagging for 
nothing, Probably it was an E.E, sergeant." 



II 



)) 



"Swis-s-sh — bang. Swis-s-sh — bang. 

"That settles it," said I, as I scrambled 
hastily down into the trench, preceded by the 
sniper I had with me that day as orderly. I 
more or less pushed him along for ten yards — 
then halted; we faced each other both very 
much out of breath and "blowy." The whole 
place was reeking with the smell of powder, 
and the air full of sand-bag fluff. 

"That settles it," I repeated: "I always 
thought that was a rotten post; and I object to 
being whizz-banged. 'A sniper's job is to see 
and not be seen.' Isn't that right, Morris?" 

"Yes, sir," replied Morris, adding with a sad 
lack of humour "They must have seen us, sir !" 



SNIPING 149 

"Exactly: they did. And they weren't very 
far off hitting one of us into the bargain. As I 
say, that settles it. We'll leave that post for 
ever and ever; and to-night we'll build a new 
one that they won't see." 

At ten o'clock that night we were well at 
work. Just on the one hundred metre contour 
line there was a small quarry, at the west end of 
which had been the too conspicuous post where 
the Boche had spotted us. Every loophole must 
by its very nature be "spo table"; but when the 
natural ground is so little disturbed that it looks 
exactly the same as it did before the post was 
made, then indeed this '^spotability" is so much 
reduced that it verges on invisibility. So, leav- 
ing the old post exactly as before, we were 
building a new one about twenty yards to the 
west of it. 

There was a disused support trench running 
west from the Quarry, and this suited my pur- 
pose admirably. It ran just along the crest 
of the hill, and commanded even a better view 
of Pricourt than the Quarry itself. Moreover, 
there was enough earth thrown up in front of 
the trench to enable us to fix in the steel-plate 
(at an angle of 45° : this increases its impenetra- 
bility) on ground level, without the top protrud- 
ing above the top of the earth. The soil in front 
was not touched at all until the plate was fixed 
in, and then enough was carefully scooped 



150 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

away from the front of the actual loophole to 
secure a fair field of view. The earth in front 
of the loophole is then exactly like a castle wall, 
with a splay window. If you think of a Nor- 
man castle you will know exactly what I mean. 
The loophole represents the inch-wide aperture 
in the inner side of the splay. Similarly an 
embrasure is built behind the loophole, with 
room for one man to stand and fire, and the 
second man to sit by him. A rainproof shelter 
of corrugated iron is placed over this embra- 
sure, and covered over with earth ; this prevents 
it being spotted by aeroplane ; also it makes the 
place habitable in the rain. Here is a section 
of a typical sniper's post: 



VartV< 







''Click, click, click" went the pick into the 
chalk, cutting room for the embrasure; there 
was a tinny sound as some of the loose surface 
soil came away with a spurt, spilling on to 
the two sheets of corrugated iron waiting to 
go on to the roof. Added to this were the few 



SNIPING 151 

quiet whispers, suoti as ''Whereas that sand- 
bag?" or ''Is this low enough, sir?" and the 
heavy breathing of Private Evans as he re- 
turned from the Quarry after emptying his 
sand-bag. For all the chalk cut away had to be 
carried to the Quarry and emptied there; new 
earth on the top there would not give any clue 
to those gentlemen in Fricourt Wood who put 
the smell of powder in my nostrils a few hours 
back. 

It was a darkish night, but not so dark but 
what you could see the top of the trench. There 
are very few nights when the sky does not 
show lighter than the trench-sides. There are 
a few, though, especially when it is raining ; and 
they are bad, very bad. But that night I could 
just distinguish the outline of the big crater- 
top, half-right, and follow the near skyline along 
the German parapet down into Fricourt valley. 
I was gazing down into thg,t silent blackness, 
when a machine-gun started popping; I could 
see the flashes very clearly from my position. 
Somewhere in Fricourt they must be. 

Meanwhile the post was nearly finished; the 
corrugated iron was being fixed to the wooden 
upright, and Jones was on the parapet sprin- 
kling earth over it. The others were deepening 
the trench from the Quarry to the post, 

** That's the machine-gun that goes every 



152 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

night, sir," said Jones. ''Enfilading, that's 
what it is. ' 

''Pop — pop — pop," answered the machine- 
gun. 

"Look here, Jones," said I. "You know 
No. 5 post, opposite Aeroplane Trench?" 

"Yes, sir!" 

"Well, go down there, and see if you can 
see the flashes from there ; and if you can, mark 
it down. See?" 

"Yes, sir!" and he had his equipment on in 
no time, and was starting off when I called him 
back. 

"Be very careful to mark your own position," 
I warned him. "You know what I mean." 

He knew, and I knew that he knew. 

Meanwhile, I stuck an empty cartridge case 
in the parados behind my head and waited. 

Five flashes spat out again, and "pop — ^pop — 
pop — pop — pop ' ' came up out of the valley : and 
between me and them in the parapet I stuck 
a second cartridge case 

I looked at my watch. It was half-past 
twelve. The post was finished, and the trench 
deep enough to get along, crawling anyway. 

"Cease work." 

The next day was so misty that you could 
see practically nothing over five hundred yards, 
and the new post was useless. The following 



SNIPINa 153 

day it had frozen again, and an inch of snow lay- 
on the ground. It was a sunny morning, and 
from the new post all Fricourt lay in full view 
before me. How well I remember every detail 
of that city of the dead ! In the centre stood the 
white ruin of the church, still higher than the 
houses around it, though a stubby stump com- 
pared to what it must have been before thous- 
ands of shells reduced it to its present state. All 
around were houses; roofless, wall-less skele- 
tons all of them, save in a few cases, where a 
red roof still remained, or a house seemed by 
some magic to be still untouched. On the ex- 
treme right was Rose Cottage, a well-known 
artillery mark ; just to its left were some large 
park-gates, with stone pillars, leading into Fri- 
court Wood; and just inside the wood was a 
small cottage — a lodge, I suppose. The extreme 
northern part of the village was invisible, as 
the ground fell away north of the church. I 
could see where the road disappeared from 
view ; then beyond, clear of the houses, the road 
reappeared and ran straight up to the sky- 
line, a mile further on. A communication 
trench crossed this road: (I remember we saw 
some men digging there one morning). With 
my glasses I could see every detail ; beyond the 
communication trench were various small 
copses, and tracks running over the field; and 



154 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

on the skyline, about three thousand yards, 
away, was a long row of bushes. 

And just to the left of it all ran the two 
white lace-borders of chalk trenches, winding 
and wobbling along, up, up, up until they dis- 
appeared over the hill to La Boiselle. Some- 
times they diverged as much as three hundred 
yards, but only to come in together again, so 
close that it was hard to see which was ours 
and which the German. Due west of Fricourt 
church they touched in a small crater chain. 

It was a fascinating view. I could not real- 
ize that there lay a French village; I think we 
often forgot that we were on French soil, and 
not on a sort of unreal earth that would dis- 
appear when the war was over; especially was 
No Man's Land a kind of neutral stage, where- 
on was played the great game. To a French- 
man, of course, Fricourt was as French as ever 
it had been. But I often forgot, when I 
watched the shells demolishing a few more 
houses, that these were not German houses de- 
serving of their fate. Perhaps people will not 
understand this : it is true, anyway. 

I was drawing a sketch of the village, when 
lo! and behold! coolly walking down the road 
into Fricourt came a solitary man. I had to 
think rapidly, and decide it must be a German, 
because the thing was so unexpected; I could 
not for the moment get out of my head the un- 



SNIPING 155 

reasonable idea that it might be one of our own 
men ! However, I soon got over that. 

' ' Sight your rifle at two thousand yards, ' ' said 
I to Morgan, who was with me. "Now, give 
it to me." 

Carefully I took aim. I seemed to be hold- 
ing the rifle up at an absurd angle. I squeezed, 
and squeezed 

The German jumped to one side, on to the 
grass at the side of the road, and doubled for 
all he was worth out of sight into Fricourt! 
Needless to say, I did not see him again to get 
another shot! 

"They've been using that road last night, 
sir," said 58 Morgan, while I was taking a care- 
ful bearing on my empty cartridge case. (A 
prismatic compass is invaluable for taking ac- 
curate cross-bearings.) 

"Yes," I said. "Why yes, of course, they 
must have used it last night. I never thought 
of that. Good. We '11 get the artillery on there 
to-night, and upset their ration-carts." 

This pleased the fancy of Sniper 58 Morgan, 
and a broad grin came over his face at the 
thought of the Boche losing his breakfast. 

"Maybe, sir, we'll see the sausages on the 
road to-morrow morning." 

For which thought I commended him not a 
little; a sense of humour is one of the attri- 



156 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

butes of a good sniper, just as rash conclusions 
are not. 

I then went down to No. 5 Post, where Jones 
was awaiting me, according to arrangement. 
There I took a second bearing, and retired to 
my dug-out to work out the two angles on the 
map. "From map to compass add: from com- 
pass to map substract," I repeated to myself, 
and disposed of the magnetic variation sum- 
marily. Then with the protractor I plotted out 
the angles. "Exactly. The small house with 
the gray roof standing out by itself on the 
left. So that's where you live, my friend, is 
it?" 

Once more I was up at the new post, scrutin- 
izing the gray-roofed house with the telescope. 
After a long gaze, I almost jumped. I gave the 
telescope to Morgan. He gazed intently for a 
moment. 

Then, "Is that a hole, sir, over the door, in 
the shadow, like . . .?" 

"It is," I answered. 

That night the machine-gun started popping 
as usual, when suddenly a salvo of whizz-bangs 
screamed over, and H.E.'s joined in the game. 
All round and about the little gray-roofed house 
flickered the flashes of bursting shells. Then 
the enemy retaliated, and for a quarter of an 
hour "a certain liveliness prevailed." Then 
came peace. But there was no sound all night 



SNIPING 157 

of a machine-gun popping from Fricourt vil- 
lage; on the other hand, our machine-guns had 
taken up the tune, with short bursts of over- 
head fire, searching for those Boche ration 
carts. And in the morning the gray-roofed 
cottage appeared with two tiles left on the right- 
hand bottom corner of the roof, and the front 
wall had a huge gap in it big enough to act as 
a mouth for fifty machine-guns. Only Morgan 
was disappointed: all marks of the sausages 
had been cleared away before dawn ! After all, 
are not the Germans pre-eminently a tidy 
people? 

in 

Private Ellis had hard blue eyes that looked 
at you, and looked, and went on looking; they 
always reminded me of the color of the sea 
when a north wind is blowing and the blue is 
hard and bright. I have seen two other pairs 
of eyes like them. One belonged to Captain 
Jefferies, the big game shooter, who lectured on 
Sniping at the Third Army School. The other 
pair were the property of a sergeant I met this 
week for the first time. **Are you a marks- 
man?" I asked him. "Yes, sir! Always a 
marksman, sir." 

There is no mistaking those eyes. They are 
the eyes of a man who has used them all his 



158 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

life, and found them grow steadier and surer 
every year. They are essentially the eyes of 
a man who can watch, watch, watch all day, and 
not get tired of watching; and they were the 
eyes of my best sniper. 

For Private Ellis had all the instincts of a 
cunning hunter. I had no need to tell him to 
keep his telescope well inside the loophole, lest 
the sun should catch on the glass; no need to 
remind him to stuff a bit of sand-bag in the 
loophole when he left the post unoccupied. He 
never forgot to let the sand-bag curtain drop 
behind him as he entered the box, to prevent 
light coming into it and showing white through 
a loophole set in dark earth. There was no 
need either to make sure that he understood the 
telescopic sights on his rifle; and there was no 
need to tell him that the Boches were clever 
people. He never under-estimated his foe. 

It was a warm day in early March. Private 
Ellis was in No. 5 Box, opposite Aeroplane 
Trench. This post was very cunningly con- 
cealed. Our front trench ran along a road, im- 
mediately behind which was a steep chalk bank, 
the road having originally been cut out of a 
rather steep slope. You will see the lie of the 
ground clearly enough on Map III. Just about 
five yards behind this bank was cut a deep nar- 
row trench, and in this trench were built several 
snipers' posts, with loopholes looking out of the 



SNIPING 159 

chalk bank. These loopholes were almost im- 
possible to see, as they were very nearly indis- 
tinguishable from the shadows in the bank. 
Anyone who has hunted for oyster-catchers* 
eggs on a pebbly beach knows that black and 
white is the most protective colour scheme ex- 
isting. And so these little black loopholes were 
almost invisible in the black and white of the 
chalk bank. 

All the morning Private Ellis had been watch- 
ing out of the corner of his eye a little bit of 
glass shining in Aeroplane Trench. Now Aero- 
plane Trench (as you will also see from the 
map) was a sap running out from the German 
front trench into a sunken road. From the 
centre sap two little branch saps ran up and 
down the road, and then slightly forward; the 
whole plan of it rather resembled an aeroplane 
and gave it its name. In it to-day was a Boche 
with a periscopic rifle ; and it was this little bit 
of glass at the top of the periscope, and the nose 
of the rifle-barrel that Private Ellis was watch- 
ing. Every now and again the glass and nose- 
cap would give a little jump and '*plop" a bullet 
would bury itself in our front parapet. One of 
our sentries had had his periscope smashed dur- 
ing the morning, I was informed by a company 
commander with rather the air of *' What's the 
use of you and your snipers, if you can't stop 
them sniping us?" I told Ellis about the peri- 



160 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

scope, to which he replied: *'It won't break 
us, I guess, sir — twopenn'orth of new glass for 
a periscope. It's heads that count." In which 
remark was no little wisdom. 

''Crack ^plop," and after a long interval 

another "Crack — zin — ^n — n — g," as a bullet 
ricocheted off a stone, and went away over the 
ridge and fell with a little sigh somewhere in 
the ground right away beyond Redoubt A. So 
it went on all the afternoon, while the sun was 
warming everyone up and one dreamed of the 
summer, and warm days, dry trenches, and 
short nights. Ellis had gone off rather reluc- 
tantly at midday, and the other relief was there. 
There was a slumbrous sensation about, that 
brought on the feeling that there was no one 
really in the enemy trenches at all. Yet there 
was the little glass eye looking at us : it reminded 
one of a snake in the grass. It glittered, un- 
blinking. 

At about six o'clock I again visited the post. 
Ellis was back there, and watching as keenly as 
ever. 

"No luck?" I remarked. "I'm afraid your 
friend is too wily for you ; he 's not going to put 
his head over, when he can see through a peri- 
scope as well." 

Still Private Ellis said little, but his eye was 
as clear and keen as ever ; and still the periscope 
remained. 



SNIPING 161 

"We must shell Mm out to-morrow," I said 
and went off. 

At half-past seven we had ''stood down," and 
I was messing with " B " Company, when I heard 
a voice at the top of the dug-out, and the serv- 
ant who was waiting — Lewis, I think it was — 
said a sniper wanted to see me. 

**Tell him to come down." 

Private Ellis appeared at the door. Not a 
muscle in his body or face moved, but his eyes 
were glowing and glittering. "Got him, sir," 
was all he said. 

"What?" I cried. "Got that Boche in Aero- 
plane Trench ? By Jove, tell us all about it. ' ' 

And so to the accompaniment of a whiskey 
and Perrier he told us exactly what happened. 
It was not till well after "stand- to," it ap- 
peared, that any change had occurred in Aero- 
plane Trench. Then the periscope had wobbled 
and disappeared below ground. Then there had 
been another long wait, and the outline of the 
sunken road had begun to get faint. Then 
slowly, very slowly, a pink forehead had ap- 
peared over the top, and as slowly disappeared. 
I wish I had been there to watch Ellis then. I 
can imagine him coolly, methodically sighting 
his rifle on the trench-edge, and waiting. "I 
had to wait another minute, sir; then it ap- 
peared again, the whole head this time. He 
thought it was too dark to be seen . . . Oh, he 



162 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

won't worry us any more, sir! I saw oile of 
his arms go up, and I thought I could see him 
fall against the back of the trench. But it was 
getting so dark, I couldn't have seen him five 
minutes later at all." 
And if Ellis couldn't, who could! 

Next day, and for many days, there was no 
sniping from Aeroplane Trench. 



CHAPTER IX 
ON PATROL 

"yjTULLO, Bill!" from Will Todd, as he 

I I passed me going up 76 Street. 

''Hullo," I answered, "where are 
you off to?" 

''Going on patrol," was the reply. "Oh, by 
the way, you probably know something about 
this rotten sap opposite the Quarry. I'm going 
out to find out if it's occupied at night or not." 

"Opposite the Quarry?" said I. "Oh, yes, I 
know it. We get rather a good view of it from 
No. 1 Post." 

' ' That post up on the right here ? Yes, I was 
up there this afternoon, but you can't see much 
from anywhere here. The worst of it is I was 
going with 52 Jones; only his leave has just 
come through. You see, I've never been out 
before. I'm trying a fellow called Edwards, 
but I don't know him." 

"If you can't get Edwards," I said suddenly, 
"I've a good mind to come out with you. Meet 
me at Trafalgar Square, and let me know." 

As Will disappeared, I immediately repented 
of my offer, repented heartily, repented abjectly. 

163 



164 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

I had never been on patrol, and a great sinking 
feeling came over me. I hoped with all my 
might that Edwards would be bubbling over 
with enthusiasm for patroling. I was afraid. 
With all the indifference to shells and canisters 
that was gradually growing upon me, I had 
never been out into No Man's Land. And yet I 
had volunteered to go out, and at the time of 
doing so I felt quite excited at the prospect. 
''Fool," I said to myself. 

"Edwards doesn't seem at all enthusiastic 
about it," said Will. "Will you really come 
out?" 

"Yes, rather. I'm awfully keen to go. I've 
never been before, either. How are you going ? ' ' 

We exchanged views on how best to dress and 
carry our revolvers, which instantly assumed a 
new interest. 

"What time are you going out?" 

"Eight o'clock." 

It was a quarter to already. 

In the dug-out I was emptying my pockets, 
taking off my equipment, and putting on a cap- 
comforter. I had my compass with me, and put 
it in my pocket. I looked on the map and saw 
that the sap was practically due north of the 
Quarry. And I took a nip of brandy out of my 
flask. Will had gone to arrange with Captain 
Robertson about warning the sentries. I was 



ON PATROL 165 

alone, and still cursing myself for this unneces- 
sary adventure. When I was ready, I stodged 
up 76 Street to the Quarry. It was certainly a 
good night, very black. 

When I saw Will and Captain Robertson to- 
gether on the fire-step peering over, I felt rather 
bucked with myself. Hitherto I had felt like 
an enthusiastic bather undressing, nearly every- 
one else having decided it was not warm enough 
to bathe ; now it was as if I suddenly found that 
they were watching me as I ran down the beach, 
and I no longer repented of my resolution. Next 
moment I was climbing up on to the slimy sand- 
bag wall, and dropping over the other side. I 
was surprised to find there was very little drop 
at all. There was an old ditch to be crossed, and 
then we came to our wire, which, was very thin 
at this point. While Will was cursing, and mak- 
ing, it seemed to me, rather an unnecessary rat- 
tling and shaking of the wire (you know how 
wire reverberates if you hit a fence by the 
road), I looked back at our own parapet. I felt 
it would be a good thing to see on one's return; 
again, it struck me how low it was, regarded 
from this side; I saw a head move along the 
top of it. This made me jump. Already our 
trench seemed immeasurably far off. 

I looked in front again, as the noise of Will's 
wire-rattling had ceased. In fact he was clean 
out of sight. This made me jump again, and I 



166 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

hurried on. It was ''knife-rest" wire (see cut 
below). 

I stepped over it, and my foot came down on 
to more wire, which rattled with a noise that 
made me stand stock still awaiting something 
to happen. I felt like a cat who has npset a 
tablecloth and all the tea things. I stood ap- 
palled at the unexpected clatter. But really it 
was hardly audible to our sentries, much less to 




the Germans at least a hundred and twenty 
yards away. 

At last I got through and flopped down. Im- 
mediately Will's form showed up dark in front 
of me. When I was standing up, I had been 
unable to see him against the black ground. 
We lay about a minute absolutely quiet, ac- 
cording to arrangement. 

I had fairly made the plunge now, and I felt 
like the bather shaking his hair as he comes up 
for the first time, and shouting out how glorious 
it is. I was elated, The feel of the wet grass 



ON PATROL 167 

was good under my hands; the silence was good; 
the immense loneliness, save for Will's black 
form, was good; and a slight rustle of wind in 
the grass was good also. I just wanted to lie, 
and enjoy it. I hoped Will would not go on for 
another minute. But soon he began to crawl. 

Have you done much crawling? It is slow 
work. You take knee-steps, and they are not 
like foot-steps: they are not a hundred and 
twenty to the hundred yards. They are more 
like fifty to ten yards, I should think. Anyway 
it seemed endless. The end of the sap was, to 
be precise, just one hundred and twenty-five 
yards from our front trench. Yet when I had 
gone, I suppose, forty yards, I expected to be 
on it any minute. Will must be going wrong. 
I thought of the map. Could we be going north- 
east instead of north? Will halted. I nearly 
bimiped into his right foot, which raised itself 
twice, signalling a halt. I took out my compass, 
and looked at it. I sh-aded it with my hand, the 
luminous arrow seemed so bright: '^ rather ab- 
surd, ' ' I thought immediately, " as if the Boches 
could possibly see it from the trench." But we 
were going straight enough. Then the figure in 
front moved on, and I came up to where he had 
halted. It was the edge of a big shell-hole, full 
of water ; I put my left hand in up to the wrist, 
I don't know why. 

Still the figure crawled on, with a sort of 



168 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

hum-backed sidle that I had got to know by now. 
It was interminable this crawling . . . 

"Sw^is— s — sh." A German flare shot up 
from ever so close. It seemed to be falling 
right over us. Then it burst with a "pop." I 
had my head down on my arms, but I could 
squint out sideways. It seemed impossible we 
should not be seen; for there, hardly twenty 
yards away, was the German wire, as clear as 
anything. Meanwhile the flare had fallen be- 
hind us. Would it never go out? I noticed the 
way the blades of grass were lit up by it; and 
there was an old tin or something. ... I 
started as a rat ran across the grass past me. 
I wondered if it were a German rat, or one of 
ours. 

Then at last the flare went out, and the black- 
ness was intense. For a while longer we lay still 
as death; then I saw Will's foot move again. I 
listened intently, and on my right I heard a me- 
tallic sound. Quite close it was; it sounded 
like the clank of a dixie. I peered hard in the 
direction of the sound. Faintly I could dis- 
tinguish earth above the ground-line. I had not 
looked to my right when the flare went up, and 
realized, as Will already had done, that we were 
out as far as the end of the sap. It was perhaps 
ten yards off, due right. I lay with my ear 
cocked sideways to catch the faintest sound. 
Clearly there was someone in the sap. But 



ON PATROL 169 

there was a wind swisMiig in the grass, and I 
could not hear anything more. Then my tense 
attitude relaxed, and I gradually sank my chin 
on my arm. I felt very comfortable. I did not 
want to move . . . 

''Bang!!" and then a flame spat out; then 
came that gritty metallic sound I had heard 
before, and another ''Bang!" I kept my head 
down and waited for the next, but it did not 
come. Then I heard a most human scroopy 
cough, which also sounded very near. The 
"bangs" were objectionably near; I literally 
shrank from them. To tell the truth, I had the 
"wind up" a bit. Those bullets seemed to me 
vicious personal spits that were distinctly un- 
pleasant and near; and I wanted to get away 
from so close a proximity to them. I remem- 
bered a maxim of some famous General to the 
intent that if you are afraid of the enemy, the 
best thing is to remember that in all proba- 
bility he is just as afraid of you. The maxim 
did not seem to apply somehow here. At the 
first "bang" I had thought we were seen; but I 
now realized that the sentry was merely blazing 
off occasional shots, and that the bullets had just 
plopped into our parapet. 

Then Will turned round, and I did the same. 
Our business was certainly ended, for there was 
no doubt about the sap being occupied. Then I 
heard a thud behind us, and looking up saw the 



170 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

slow climbing trail of a canister blazing up into 
the sky; up it mounted, up, up, up, hovered a 
moment, then turned, and with a gathering im- 
petus blazed down somewhere well behind our 
front trench. 

''Trafalgar Square," I thought, as I lay- 
doggo, for the blaze lit up the sky somewhat. 

''Bomp." The earth shook as the canister 
exploded. 

''Thud," and the process was repeated ex- 
actly as before, ending in another quaking 
"Bomp!" 

I enjoyed tliis. It was rather a novel way of 
seeing canisters, and moreover a very safe way. 

Two more streamed over. 

Then our footballs answered, and burst with 
a bang in the air not so very far over into the 
German lines. The trench-mortar fellow was 
evidently trying short fuses, for usually our 
trench-mortar shells burst on percussion. 

Then in the distance I heard four bangs, and 
the Boche 4.2 's started, screaming over at 
Maple Redoubt. I determined to move on. 

Then suddenly came four distant bangs from 
the right of our lines (as we faced them), and 
with "wang — ^wang . . . wang — ^wang" four 
whizz-bangs burst right around us, with most 
appalling flickers. "Bang — bang . . . bang — 
bang" in the distance again, and I braced every 
muscle tightly, as you do when you prepare to 



ON PATEOL 171 

meet a shock. Behind us, and just in front, the 
beastly things burst. I lay with every fibre in 
my body strained to the uttermost. And yet I 
confess I enjoyed the sensation! 

There was a lull, and I began crawling as fast 
as I could. I stopped to see if Will was follow- 
ing. ' ' By God, " I heard, * ' let 's get out of this. ' ' 
So I was thinking ! Then as I went on I saw the 
edge of a crater. Where on earth? 

I halted and pulled out my compass. Due 
south I wanted. I found I was bearing off to 
the right far too much, so with compass in hand 
I corrected my course. Some crawling this 
time ! It was not long before we could see wire 
in the distance. Then I got up and ran. How 
I got through that wire I don't know; I tore my 
puttees badly, and must have made a most un- 
necessary rattling. After which I fell into the 
ditch. 

*' Thank heaven you're all right," was the 
greeting from Captain Kobertson. ''I was just 
coming out after you. Those d — d artillery fel- 
lows. I sent down at once to 'phone to them 
to stop ..." 

And so on. I hardly heard a word. I was so 
elated, I could not listen. As we went back to 
Trafalgar Square for dinner, I heard them 
warning the sentries. "The patrol's in." I 
looked up at the sandbag parapet. ''In," I 



172 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

thought. ''One does not realise what 'in' is, 
till one's been out." 

I have been out several times later. I never 
had any adventures much. But always, before 
going out, I felt the shivers of the bather; and 
always, after I came in, a most splendid glow. 



CHAPTER X 

''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 

**1^ T officer wounded since we came out in 
I ^^ October, ' ' said Edwards : ' ' we 're really 

awfully lucky, you know." 
''For heaven's sake, touch wood," I cried. 
We laughed, for the whole of our establish- 
ment was wood. We were sitting on a wooden 
seat, leaning our hands against wooden uprights, 
eating off a wooden table, and resting our feet 
on a wooden floor. Sometimes, too, we found 
splinters of wood in the soup — but it was more 
often straw. For this dining-room in Trafalgar 
Square was known sometimes as the ' ' Summer- 
house" and sometimes as the ''Straw Palace." 
It was really the maddest so-called "dug-out" 
in the British lines, I should think; I might 
further add, "in any trench in Europe." For 
the French, although they presumably built it in 
the summer days of 1915 when the Bois FrauQais 
trenches were a sort of summer-rest for tired- 
out soldiers, would never have tolerated the 
"Summer-house" since the advent of the can- 
ister-age. As for the Boche, he would have 
merely stared if anyone had suggested him using 

173 



174 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

it as a Company Headquarters, ''But," he 
would have said, "it is not shell-proof." 

Exactly. It would not have stood even a 
whizz-bang. A rifle-grenade would almost cer- 
tainly have come right through it. As for a 
canister or H.E., it would have gone through 
like a stone piercing wet paper. But it had been 
Company Headquarters for so long — it was so 
light and, being next door to the servants ' dug- 
out, so convenient — that we always lived in it 
still; though we slept in a dug-out a little way 
down Old Kent Eoad, which was certainly whizz- 
bang — if not canister — proof. 

At any rate, here were Edwards and myself, 
drinking rather watery ox-tail soup out of very 
dinted tin-plates — the spoons were scraping 
noisily on the metal; overhead, a rat appeared 
out of the straw thatch, looked at me, blinked, 
turned about, and disappeared again, sending a 
little spill of earth on to the table. 

' ' Hang these rats, ' ' I exclaimed, for the tenth 
time that day. 

Outside, it was brilliant moonlight : whenever 
the door opened, I saw it. It was very quiet. 
Then I heard voices, the sound of a lot of men, 
moving in the shuffling sort of way that men do 
move at night in a communication trench. 

The door flew open, and Captain Robertson 
looked in. 

"Hullo, Robertson; you're early!" 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 175 

It was not much past half -past sevsn. 

"YouVe got those sand-bags up by 78 
Street?" he said, sitting down. 

''Yes, 250 there, and 250 right up in the Loop. 
The rest I shall use on the Fort. Oh! by the 
way, you know we are strafing at 12.05? We 
just had a message up from Dale. I shall knock 
off at 11.45 to-night!" 

" I '11 see how we get on. I want to finish that 
traverse. Eighto. I'm just drawing tools and 
going up now." 

"See you up there in a few minutes." 

And the muttering stream of "A" Company 
filed past the dug-out, going up to the front line. 
The door swung open suddenly, and each man 
looked in as he went by. 

"Shut the door," I shouted. Our plates 
themselves somehow suddenly looked epicurean. 

Soon after eight I was up in the front line. 
It was the brightest night we had had, and ideal 
for sand-bag work. The men were already at it. 
There was a certain amount of inevitable talking 
going on, before everyone got really started. 
We were working on the Fort, completing two 
box dug-outs that we had half put in the night 
before; also, we were thickening the parapet, 
between the Fort and the Loop, and building a 
new fire-step. 

"Oan't see any d sand-bags here," came 

from one man. 



176 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

"We'll have to pick this, sir," from another. 

* * Where 's Mullens gone off to T * sharply from 
a sergeant. 

But for the most part the moonlight made 
everything straightforward, and there was only 
the spitting sound of picks, the heavy smothered 
noise of men lifting sand-bags, or the ''slap, 
slap" of others patting them into a wall with 
the back of a shovel, that broke the stillness. 
On the left ''A" Company were working full 
steam ahead, heightening the parapet and build- 




d sand-bag work. 



ing a big traverse at the entrance to the Matter- 
horn sap. "Robertson's traverse" we always 
called it afterwards. He got his men working 
in a long chain, passing filled sand-bags along 
from a big miners' sand-bag dump, the accumu- 
lation of months of patient R.E. tunnelling. 
These huge dumps rose up in gigantic piles 
wherever there was a shaft-head ; and they were 
a wind-fall to us if they were anywhere near 
where we were working. On this occasion quite 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 177 

a thousand must have been passed along and 
built into that traverse, and the parapet there, 
by the Matterhom. It was fascinating work, 
passing these dry, small sacks as big as medium- 
sized babies, only as knobby and angular under 
their outer cover as a baby is soft and rounded. 
Meanwhile the builders laid them, like bricks, 
alternate ''headers" and "stretchers." 

And so the work went on under the moon. 

"Davies," I cried, in that low questioning 
tone that might well be called "trench voice." 
It is not a whisper ; yet it is not a full, confident 
sound. If a man speaks loudly in the front 
trench, you tell him to remember the Boche is a 
hundred yards away ; if he whispers in a hoarse 
voice that sounds a little nervy, you tell him 
that the Boche 's ears are not a hundred yards 
long. The result is a restrained and serious- 
toned medium. 

' ' Sirr, ' ' answered a voice close beside me, in a 
pitch rather louder than the usual trench-voice. 
Davies always spoke clear and loud. He was 
my orderly. 

"Oh! there you are." Like a dog he had got 
tired of standing, and while I stood watching 
the fascinating progress of the erection of a 
box dug-out under Sergeant Hayman's direc- 
tion, he was sitting on the fire-step immediately 
behind me. Had he been a collie, his tongue 



178 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

would have been out, and he would have yawned 
occasionally ; or his nose might even have been 
between his paws. Now he jumped up, giving a 
hitch to his rifle that was slung over his left 
shoulder. 

''I'm going round the sentries," I said. 

Davies said nothing, but followed about two 
paces behind, stopping when I stopped, and gaz- 
ing at me silently when I got up on the fire-step 
to look over. 

The low-ground in the quarry was very wet, 
and the trench there two feet deep in water, so 
it was temporarily abandoned, and the little 
trench out of 76 Street by No. 1 Sniping Post 
was my way to No. 5 Platoon. It was a very 
narrow bit of trench, and on a dark night one 
kept knocking one's thighs and elbows against 
hard corners of chalk-filled sandbags. To-night 
it was easy in the white moonlight. It was really 
not a trench at all, but a path behind a sand-bag 
dump. Behind was the open field. There was 
no parados. 

All correct on the two posts in No. 5. It 
seemed almost unnecessary to have two posts 
on such a bright night. The outline of the Ger- 
man parapet looked clear enough. Surely the 
sentries must be almost visible to-night? Eight 
opposite was the dark earth of a sap-head. Our 
wire looked very near and thin. 

''Everything all right?" 



"WHOM THE aODS LOVE" 179 

"Yes, sir!" 

I saw the bombs lying ready in the crease be- 
tween two sand-bags that formed the parapet 
top. The pins were bent straight, ready for 
quick drawing. The bomber was all right ; and 
there was not much wrong with his pal's bay- 
onet, that glistened in the moonlight. 

As usual, I went beyond our right post, until 
I was met by a peering, suspicious head from the 
left-hand sentry of "C" Company. 

"Who's that?" in a hoarse low voice, as the 
figure bent down off the fire-step. 

"All right. Officer. *B' Company." 

Then I passed back along the trench to the top 
of 76 Street ; and so on, visiting all the sentries 
up to 80 A trench, and disturbing all the work- 
ing-parties. 

"Way, please," I would say to the hindquar- 
ters of an energetic wielder of the pick. 

"Hi! make way there!" Davies would say in 
a higher and louder voice when necessary. Then 
the figure would straighten itself, and flatten 
itself against the trench, while I squeezed past 
between perspiring man and slimy sand-bag. 
This ' ' passing" was an eternal business. It was 
unavoidable. No one ever said anything, or 
apologized. No one ever grumbled. It was like 
passing strap-hangers in the crowded carriage 
of a Tube. Only it went on day and night. 

Craters by moonlight are really beautiful ; the 



180 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

white chalk-dust gives them the appearance of 
snow-mountains. And they look much larger 
than they really are. On this occasion, as I 
looked into them from the various bombing- 
posts, it needed little imagination to suppose I 
was up in the snows of the Welsh hills. There 
was such a death-like stillness over it all, too. 
The view from the Matterhorn was across the 
widest and deepest of all the craters, and I stood 
a long time peering across that yawning chasm 
at the dark, irregular rim of German sand-bags. 
I gazed fascinated. What was it all about? The 
sentry beside me came from a village near Dol- 
gelly: was a farmer's boy. He, too, was gazing 
across, hardly liking to shuffle his feet lest he 
break the silence. 

' ' Good God ! " I felt inclined to exclaim. ' ' Has 
there ever been anything more idiotic than this ? 
What in the name of goodness are you and I 
doing here?" 

So I thought, and so I believe he was thinking. 

'* Everything all right?" was all I said, as I 
jumped back into the trench. 

**Yes, sir," was all the answer. 

About ten o'clock I went back to Trafalgar 
Square. There I heard that Thompson of *'C" 
Company had been wounded. From what I could 
gather he had been able to walk down to the 
dressing-station, so I concluded he was only 
slightly hit. But it came as rather a shock, and 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 181 

I wondered whether he would go to ''Blighty." 

At eleven I started off for the front trench 
again, via Rue Albert and 78 Street. There was 
a bit of a "strafe" on. It started with canis- 
ters; it had now reached the stage of whizz- 
bangs as well. I thought little of it, when "woo 
— woo — ^woo — ^woo," and the Boche turned on 
his howitzers. They screamed over to Maple 
Redoubt. 

A pause. Then again, and they screamed 
down just in front of us, evidently after the 
corner of 78 Street. I did not hesitate, but 
pushed on. The trench was completely blocked. 
Rue Albert was revetted with wood and brush- 
wood, and it was all over the place. Davies and 
I climbed over with great difficulty, the whole 
place reeking with powder. 

"Look out, sir!" came from Davies, and we 
crouched down. There was a colossal din while 
shells seemed all round us. 

"All right, Davies?" And we pushed on. At 
last here was 78 Street, and we turned up to 
find another complete block in the trench. "We 
again scrambled over, and met "A" Company 
wiring-party, returning for more wire. 

"The trench is blocked," said I, "but you can 
get over all right." 

We passed in the darkness. 

Again "Look out!" from Davies, and we 



182 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

cowered. Again the shells screamed down on 
us, and burst just behind. 

''Grood God!" I exclaimed, ''those wirers!" 

Davies ran back. 

There was another block in the trench, but no 
sign of any men. They were well away by now ! 
But the shell had fallen between us and them 
before they reached the block in 78 Street! 

Out of breath we arrived at the top of 78 
Street to find "A" Company just getting going 
again after a hot quarter of an hour. Luckily 
they had had no casualties. All was quiet now, 
and the moon looked down upon the workers as 
before. A quarter past eleven. 

I worked my way along to the Fort and found 
there a sentry rather excited because, he said, 
he had seen exactly the spot from which they 
had fired rifle-grenades in the strafing just now. 
I got him to point out the place. It was half- 
left, and as I looked, sure enough I saw a flash, 
and a rifle-grenade whined through the air, and 
fell with a snarl behind our trench. 

"Davies," I said, "get Lance-Corporal Allan 
to come here with the Lewis gun." 

Davies was gone like a flash. 

The Lewis guns had only recently become 
company weapons, and were still somewhat of 
a novelty. The Lewis gunners were rather en- 
vied, and also rather "downed" by the sergeant- 
major for being specialists. But this they could 



"WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 183 

not help ; and they were, as a matter of fact, the 
best men in my company. 

Allan arrived, with one of the team carrying 
two spare drums of ammunition. We pointed 
out the spot, and he laid his gun on the parapet, 
with the butt against his shoulder, and his finger 
on the trigger, and waited. 

''Flash!" 

** There he is, sir!" from the sentry. 

'*Drrrrrr-r-r-r" purred the Lewis gun, then 
stopped. Then again, ending with another jerk. 
There was a silence. We waited five mniutes. 

''I'll just empty the magazine, sir." 

Lance-Corporal Allan took off the drum, and 
handed it to the other Lewis gunner. Then he 
handed down the gun, and we talked a few min- 
utes. He was very proud of his gun. After a 
time I sent him back, and made my way along to 
"A" Company. 

There I found Eobertson. We talked. A tre- 
mendous lot of work had been done, and the big 
traverse was practically finished. 

"I'm knocking off now," said I. It was a 
quarter to twelve, and I went along with the 
"Cease work" message. 

"All right," said Eobertson, "I'm just going 
to have another look at my wirers. I'll look in 
as I go down." 

By the time I had reached the top of 76 Street, 



184 NOTHING OF IMPOBTANCE 

the trench was full of the clank of the thermos 
dixies, and the men were drinking hot soup. The 
pioneers had just brought it up. I stopped and 
had a taste. It was good stuff. As I turned off 
down the trench, I heard the Germans start 
shelling again on our left, but they stopped al- 
most directly. I thought nothing of it at the 
time. 

It was just midnight when I reached Trafal- 
gar Square and bumped into Davidson coming 
round the corner. 

''I was looking for you," said he. "YouVe 
heard about Tommy?" 

' ' Yes, ' ' I answered. * * But he's not badly hit, 
is he?" 

''Oh, you haven't heard. He died at eleven 
o'clock." 

Died! My God! this was something new. 
Briefly, tersely, Davidson told me the details. 
He had been hit in the mouth while working 
on the parapet, and had died down at the dress- 
ing station. I looked hard at Davidson, as we 
stood together in the moonlight by the big island 
traverse at Trafalgar Square. Somehow I felt 
my body tense ; my teeth were pressed together; 
my eyes did not want to blink. Here was some- 
thing new. I had seen death often : it was noth- 
ing new. But it was the first time it had taken 
one of us. I wondered what Davidson felt; he 
knew Thompson much better than I. Yet I knew 



^'WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 185 

him well enough — only a day or so ago he had 
come to our billet in the butcher's shop, and 
we had talked of him afterwards — and now — 
dead 

All this flashed through my brain in a second. 
Meanwhile Davidson was saying, 

''Well, I'm just going off for this strafe," 
when I heard men running down a trench. 

''Quick! stretcher-bearers. The Captain's 
hit," came from someone in a low voice. The 
stretcher-bearers ' dug-out was just by where we 
were standing, and immediately I heard a stir 
inside, and a head looked out from the water- 
proof sheet that acted as curtain in front of it. 

"Is it a stretcher-case?" a voice asked. 

' ' Yes, ' ' was the reply, and without more ado 
two stretcher-bearers turned out and ran up 76 
Street after the orderly. At that moment there 
was a thud, and a blazing trail climbed up the 
sky from the left. 

"D ," I muttered. "We must postpone 

this strafe. Davidson, we'll fix up later, see? 
Only no firing now. ' ' As Davidson disappeared 
to his gun-position, I ran to the telephone. 

"Trench-mortar officer," I said. "Quick!" 

But there is no "quick" about a signaller. He 
is always there, and methodically, without haste 
or flurry, he takes down and sends messages. 
There is no "quickness"; yet there is no delay. 
If the world outside pulses and rocks under a 



186 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

storm of shells, in the signallers' dng-ont is 
always a deep-sea calm. So impatiently I 
watched the operator beat his little tattoo on the 
buzzer; looked at his face, as the candle-light 
shone on it, with its ears hidden beneath the 
receiver-drums, and its head swathed by the 
band that holds them over the ears. In the 
corner, the second signaller sat up and peered 
out of his blanket, and then lay down again. 

**Zx? Is there an officer there? Hold on a 
minute, please. The officer's at the gun, sir; 
will you speak to the corporal?" 

"Yes." I already had the receiver to my 
ear. 

**Is that the trench-mortar corporal? Well, 
go and tell Mr. Macf arlane, will you, to stop fir- 
ing at once, and not to start again till he hears 
from Mr. Adams. Right. Right. Thanks." 
This last to the signaller as I left the dug-out. 

"Thud!" and another football blazed through 
the sky. 

Macfarlane was the officer in charge of the 
trench-mortar guns of our sector. I knew him 
well. Davidson was in charge of the Stokes gun, 
which is a quick-firing trench-mortar gun. Mac- 
farlane's shells were known as "footballs," but 
as they had a handle attached they looked more 
like hammers as they slowly curved through 
the air. 

We had arranged to "strafe" a certain posi- 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 187 

tion in the German support line at five minutes 
after midnight. But I wanted to stop it before 
retaliation started. The doctor had gone up the 
front line, and Eobertson would be brought 
down any minute. 

Outside I met Brock. He said little, but it was 
good to have him there. A long while it seemed, 
waiting. I started up 76 Street. No sooner had 
I started than I heard footsteps coming down, 
and to make room I went back. I was preparing 
to say some cheery word to Robertson, but when 
I saw him he was lying quite still and uncon- 
scious. I stopped the little doctor. 

"Is he bad. Doc?" 

*'Well, old man, I can hardly say. He's got a 
fighting chance," and he went on. Slowly I 
heard the stretcher-bearers' footsteps growing 
fainter and fainter, and there was silence. Thank 
God ! those footballs had stopped now ! 

Did I guess that Robertson too was mortally 
wounded? I cannot say — only my teeth were 
set, and I felt very wideawake. In a minute 
both Davidson and Macfarlane came up, David- 
son down 76 Street, and Macfarlane from Rue 
Albert. I told Macfarlane all about it, and as 
I did so my blood was up. I swore hard at the 
devils that had done this; and we agreed on a 
"strafe" at a quarter to one. 

I stood alone at Trafalgar Square. There 



188 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

was a great calm sky, and the moon looked down 
at me. Then with a ''thud" the first football 
went up. Then the Stokes answered. 

''Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!" Up they 
sailed into the air all together, and exploded with 
a deafening din. 

"Thud— thud I" 

"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!" 

Then the Boche woke up. Two canisteirs rose, 
streamed, and fell, dropping slightly to my right. 

But still our trench mortars went on. Two 
more canisters tried for Davidson's gun. 

I was elated. ' ' This for Thompson and Rob- 
ertson, ' ' I said, as our footballs went on method- 
ically. 

Then the whizz-bangs began on Trafalgar 
Square. 

I went to the telephone. 

"Artillery," I said briefly. "Retaliate C 1 
Sector." 

And then our guns began. 

"Scream, scream, scream" they went over. 

"Swish-swish" answered the Boche whizz- 
bangs. 

"Phew," said Sergeant Tallis, the bombing- 
sergeant, as he looked out of his dug-out. 

"More retaliation," I said to the signaller, 
and stepped out again. 

A grim exaltation filled me. We were getting 
our own back. I did not care a straw for their 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 189 

canisters or whizz-bangs. It pleased me to hear 
Sergeant Tallis say ' ' Phew. ' ' My blood was up, 
and I did not feel like saying ' ' Phew. ' ' 

"The officer wants to know if that is enough," 
said the telephone orderly, who had come out to 
find me. 

''No," I answered; "I want more." 

The Boche was sending "heavies" over on to 
Maple Redoubt. I would go on until he stopped. 
My will should be master. Again our shells 
screamed over. There was no reply. 

Gradually quiet came back. 

Then I heard footsteps, and there was David- 
son. His face was glowing too. 

"How was that?" he asked. 

How was that? He had fired magnificently, 
though the Boche had sent stuff all round him. 
How was that I 

' ' Magnificent ! We Ve shut them up. ' ' 

"I've got six shells left. Shall I blaze them 
off?" 

"Oh, no!" said I; "I think we've avenged 
Tommy. ' ' 

His face hardened. 

"Goodnight, Bill!" 

But I did not feel like sleep. I still stood at 
the corner, waiting for I knew not what. 

"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!" went the 
Stokes gun. There was a pause, and "bang, 
bang, bang, bang, bang!" came the sound of 



190 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 
them bursting. There wais a longer pause. 

''Bang!" I watched the spark floating 
through the sky. 

"Bang!" came the sound back from the Ger- 
man trench. 

I waited. There was no answer. And for the 
first time that night I fancied the moon smiled. 



[Copy] 

Daily Summaby. C 1. (Left Company) 
6 P.M. 18.3.16—3.30 P.M. 19.3.16 



(a) Operations. 

11 P.M. Enemy fired six rifle-grenades 
from FlO/5. The approximate position of 
the battery was visible from the Foet, and 
Lewis gun fire was brought to bear on it, 
which immediately silenced it. 
11.30 P.M. Enemy fired several trench- 
mortar shells and H.E. shells on junction of 
78 Street and Eue Albeet (FlO/6), a few 
falling in our front line trench by the Mat- 
TEEHOEN. No damage was done to our 
trenches. 

12.45 P.M. Our T.M. Battery fired 12 
footballs, and our Stokes gun 32 shells at 



WHOM THE GODS LOVE = 



191 



enemy's front line trench in FlO/5. The 
enemy sent a few canisters over, but then 
resorted to H.E.'s. Our artillery retali- 
ated. Our Stokes gun continued to fire until 
enemy was silent, no reply being sent to our 
last 6 shells. 

7.45 A.M. Enemy fired several rifle-gren- 
ades and bombs. Our R.G. 's retaliated with 
24 R. G.'s. 



FlO/6 



FlO/5 



(b) Progress of Work. 

30 yards of parapet thickened two 

feet. 
25 yards of fire-step built. 
20 coils of wire put out. 

20 yards of parapet thickened two 

feet. 
2 dug-outs completed. 
20 yards of fire-step built. 

J. B. P. Adams, Lt., 

O.C. ''B"Coy. 



CHAPTER XI 
*'WHOM THE GODS hOVW— {Continued) 

AS I write I feel inclined to throw the whole 
book in the fire. It seems a desecration to 
■ tell of these things. Do I not seem to be 
exulting in the tragedy? Should not he who feels 
deeply keep silent. Sometimes I think so. And 
yet it is the truth, word for word the truth; 
so I must write it. 

In the Straw Palace next morning Davidson 
and I were sitting discussing last night, when 
the doctor looked in. He started talking about 
Vermorel sprayers (the portable tins shaped 
like large oval milk-cans, filled with a solution 
useful for clearing dug-outs after a gas attack) . 
One of these was damaged, and I had sent down 
a note to the M.O. about it. 

''How's Robertson?" I asked at once. 

"He died this morning, Bill — three o'clock 
this morning." 

"Good God," I said. 

"Pretty ghastly, isn't it? Two officers like 
that in one night. The CO. is awfully cut up 
about it." 

"Robertson dead?" said Davidson. 
192 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 193 

And so we talked for some minutes. The old 
doctor was used to these things. He had seen 
so many officers fall out of line. But to us 
this was new, and we had not gauged it yet. 
You might have thought from his quiet jerky 
sentences that the doctor was almost callous. 
You would have been wrong. 

"Well, 1 must get on," he said at last. **So 
long, Bill. Send that Vermorel sprayer down, 
will you, and I'll see to it, and you'll have it 
back tonight, probably." 

''Righto." And the doctor and his orderly 
disappeared down the Old Kent Road. 

Davidson and I talked alone. 

"It must be pretty rotten being an M.O.," he 
remarked. 

Then the ' ' F.L.O. ' ' came in. He is the ' ' For- 
ward liaison officer," an artillery officer who 
lives up with the infantry and facilitates co-op- 
eration between the two. At the same moment 
came a cheery Scotch voice outside, and Mac- 
farlane, the "football" officer, looked in. 

"Come oot a' that!" he cried. "Sittin' in- 
doors on a fine mornin'." 

"Come in," we said. 

But his will prevailed, and we all came out 
into the sunshine. I had not seen him since 
last night's little show. Now he was being 
relieved by another officer for six days, and I 



194 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

was anxious to know what sort of a man was 
his successor. But Macfarlane did not know 
much about him yet. 

** Anyway," said I, "if he'll only fire like 
you, we don't mind." 

''Och!" grunted Macfarlane. ''What's the 
use of havin' a gun, and no firin' it? So long 
as I get ma footballs up, I'll plunk them over 
aw recht." 

''Yes," I added. "The Boche doesn't ap- 
prove of your sort." 

For there were other sorts. There was the 
trench-mortar officer who was never to be 
found, but who left a sergeant with instruc- 
tions not to fire without his orders; there was 
the trench-mortar officer who "could not fire 
except by Brigade orders"; there was the 
trench-mortar officer who was ' ' afraid of giving 
his position away" ; there was the trench-mortar 
officer who "couldn't get any ammunition up, 
you know ; they won't give it me only too pleased 
to fire, if only . . . " ; there was the trench-mor- 
tar officer who started firing on his own, without 
consulting the company commander, just when 
you had a big working-party in the front 
trenches; and lastly there were trench-mortar 
officers like Davidson and Macfarlane. 

"Cheero^ then," we said, as Macfarlane went 
off. "Look us up. You know our billet ? We'll. 
be out to-morrow." 



"WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 195 

Then we finished our consultation and divided 
off to our different jobs. 

All that day I felt that there was in me some- 
thing which by all rights should have "given" : 
these two deaths should have made me feel dif- 
ferent : and yet I was just the same. As I went 
round the trench, with Davies at my heels, talk- 
ing to platoon-sergeants, examining wire 
through my periscope, all in the ordinary way 
exactly as before, I forgot all about Tommy 
and Robertson. Even when I came to the place 
where Robertson had been hit, and saw the 
blood on the fire-step, and some scraps of cotton 
wool lying about, I looked at it as you might 
look at a smashed egg on the pavement, curi- 
ously, and then passed on. "Am I indifferent 
to these things, then?" I asked myself. I had 
not realized yet that violent emotion very rarely 
comes close upon the heels of death, that there 
is a numbness, a blunting of the spirit, that is an 
anodyne to pain. I was ashamed of my indif- 
ference; yet I soon saw that it was no uncom- 
mon thing. Besides, one had to "carry on" 
just the same. There was always a silence 
among the men, when a pal "goes west" ; so now 
Edwards and I did not talk much, except to 
discuss the ordinary routine. 

I did not get much rest that day. In the 
afternoon came up a message from the adjutant 
that we were exploding a mine opposite the 



106 KOTHlNG OF IMPOKTANCIil 

Matterhom at 6.30; our trench was to be 
cleared from 80 A to the bombing-post on the 
left of the Loop inclusive. Edwards and I were 
the only officers in the company, so while he ar- 
ranged matters with the Lewis-gun teams, I 
went off to see about getting the trench cleared. 
I had just sent off the "daily summary," my 
copy of which is reproduced on page 179. As I 
came back along 78 Street, I met Davidson 
again. He was looking for a new site for his 
gun, so as to be able to get a good fire to bear 
on the German lines opposite the Matterhorn. 
I went with him, and together we found a place 
behind the big mine- dump to the left of 78 
Street, and close to one of our rifle-grenade 
batteries. As he went off to get his corporal 
and team to bring the gun over and fix it in 
position, he said something in a rather low 
voice. 

"What?" I shouted. "Couldn't hear." 

He came back and repeated it. 

"Oh," I said. "Sorry. Yes, all right. I 
expect I'll hear from the adjutant. Thanks." 

AVhat he said was that there would be a 
funeral that night at nine o'clock. Thompson 
and Robertson were being buried together. He 
thought I would like to know. 

It was close on half-past six, and getting dark. 
The trenches were cleared, and I was waiting 
at the head of two platoons that strung out 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 197 

along 78 Street and behind the Loop. Eifles 
had been inspected; the men had the S.A.A. 
(small arms ammunition) and the bomb boxes 
with them, ready to take back into the trench 
as soon as the mine had gone up. I looked at 
my watch. 

''Another minute," I said. 
Then, as I spoke, the earth shook; there was 
a pause, and a great black cloud burst into the 
air, followed by a roar of flames. I got up on 
the fire-step to see it better. It is a good show, 
a mine. There was the sound of falling earth, 
and then silence. 

"Come on," I said, and we hurried back into 
the trench. Weird and eerie it looked in the 
half-light; its emptiness might have been years 
old. It was undamaged, as we had expected; 
only there was loose earth scattered all over 
the parapet and fire-step. 

Then hell broke loose, a crashing, banging, 
flashing hell that concentrated on the German 
front line directly opposite. It seemed like stir- 
ring up an ant's nest, and then spraying them 
with boiling water as they ran about in con- 
fusion ! 

"Bang — bang — bang — bang — bang," 
barked Davidson's gun. 

"Thud," muttered the football- thrower. 
"Wheep! Wee-oo, wee-oo, wee-oo," went 
the rifle grenades. And all this splendid rain 



198 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

burst with a glorious splash just over the new 
crater. It was magnificent shooting, and half 
of us were up on the fire-step watching the fire- 
works. 

Then the Boche retaliated, with canisters and 
whizz-bangs, and "heavies" for Maple Re- 
doubt ; and then our guns joined the concert. It 
was "hot shop" for half an hour, but at last 
it died down and there was a great calm. Some 
of the men were in the trenches for the first 
time, and had not relished the proceedings over- 
much! They were relieved to get the order 
"stand down!" 

There were several things to be done, work- 
ing-parties to be arranged, final instructions 
given to a patrol, Lewis gunners to be detailed 
to rake the German parapet opposite the Matter- 
horn all night. A platoon sergeant was worried 
about his sentries ; he had not enough men, hav- 
ing had one or two casualties; and I had to 
lend him men from a more fortunate platoon. 
It was quite dark, and nearly half-past seven 
by the time I got back to Trafalgar Square. 
Edwards had started dinner, as he was on trench 
duty at eight o'clock. The sergeant-major was 
on duty until then. 

Davidson looked in on his way down to Maple 
Redoubt. 

"I say, your Stokes were busting top-hole. 
We had a splendid view." 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 199 

"They weren't going short, were they?" he 
asked. 

"No. Just right. The fellows were awfully 
bucked with it." 

"Oh, good. You can't see a bit from where 
we are, and the corporal said he thought they 
were going short. But I'd worked out the 
range and was firing well over 120, so I car- 
ried on. I'm going down to have dinner with 
O'Brien. I think we've done enough to-night." 

Then I saw that he was tired out. 

"Rather a hot shop?" I asked. 

"Yes," he said in his casual way. "They 
were all round us. Well, cheero! I shan't be 
up till about ten, I expect, unless there's any- 
thing wanted. ' ' 

"Cheero!" 

"It's no joke firing that gun with the Boche 
potting at you hard with canisters," I said to 
Edwards, as Davidson's footsteps died away. 

"He's the bravest fellow in the regiment," 
said Edwards, and we talked of the time when 
the gun burst in his face as he was firing it, 
and he told his men that it had been hit by a 
canister, to prevent their losing confidence in 
it. I saw him just afterwards: his face was 
bleeding. It was no joke being Stokes' officer; 
the Germans hated those vicious snapping bolts 
that spat upon them "One, two, three, four, 



200 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

five, ' ' and always concentrated their fire against 
his gun. But they had not got him. 

*'No, he's inside," I heard Edwards saying. 
"Bill. Telephone message." 

The telephone orderly handed me a pink 
form. Edwards was outside, just about to go 
on trench duty. It was eight. I went outside. 
It was bright moonlight again. Grimly, I 
thought of last night. 

''Look here," I said. ''There's this funeral 
at nine o 'clock. I 've just got this message. One 
officer from each company may go. Will you 
go? I can't very well go as O.C. Company." 
And I handed him the pink form to see. 

So we rearranged the night duties, and Ed- 
wards went off till half -past eight, while I fin- 
ished my dinner. Lewis was hovering about 
with toasted cheese and cafe au lait. As I swal- 
lowed these glutinous concoctions, the candle 
flickered and went out. I pushed open the door : 
the moonlight flooded in, and I did not trouble to 
call for another candle. Then I heard the ser- 
geant-major's voice, and went out. We stood 
talking at Trafalgar Square. 

"Shan't be sorry to get relieved tomorrow," 
I said. I was tired, and I wondered how long 
the night would take to pass. 

Suddenly, up the Old Kent Road I heard a 
man running. My heart stopped. I hate the 
sound of running in a trench, and last night 



"WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 201 

they had run for stretcher-bearers when Robert- 
son was hit. I looked at the sergeant-major, 
who was biting his lip, his ears cocked. Round 
the corner a man bolted, out of breath, excited. 
I stopped him ; he nearly knocked into us. 

''Hang you," said I. "Stop! Where the 
devil . . .?" 

"Mr. Davidson, sir . . . Mr. Davidson is 
killed." 

"Rot!" I said, impatiently. "Pull your- 
self together, man. He's all right. I saw 
him only half an hour ago. ' ' 

But as I spoke, something broke inside me. 
It was as if I were straining, beating against 
something relentless. As though by words, by 
the cry "impossible" I could beat back the flood 
of conviction that the man's words brought over 
me. Dead ! I knew he was dead. 

"Impossible, corporal," I said. "What do 
you mean?" For I saw now that it was David- 
son's corporal who stood gazing at me with 
fright in his eyes. 

He pulled himself together at last. 

' ' Killed, sir. It came between us as we were 
talking. A whizz-bang, sir. ' ' 

"My God!" I cried. "Where?" 

"Just at the bottom, sir" — the man jerked 
his hand back down Old Kent Road. "We were 
just talking, sir. My leave has come through, 
and he was joking, and saying his would be 



202 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

through soon, when ... oh, Jesus ... I was 
half blinded . . .I've not got over it yet, sir." 
And the man was all trembling as he spoke. 

"He was killed instantly?" 

*'Ach!" said the man. He made a gesture 
with his hands. "It burst right on him." 

"Poor fellow," I said. God knows what I 
meant. "Send a man with him, sergeant-ma- 
jor," I added, and plunged up 76 Street. 

"Davidson," I cried. "Davidson dead!" 

It was close on midnight, as I stood outside 
the Straw Palace. Lewis brought me a cup of 
cocoa. I drank it in silence, and ate a piece of 
cake. I told the man to go to bed. Then, when 
he had disappeared, I climbed up out of the 
trench, and sat, my legs dangling down into it. 
Down in the trench the moon cast deep black 
shadows. I looked around. All was bathed in 
pale, shimmery moonlight. There was a great 
silence, save for distant machine-guns popping 
down in the Fricourt valley, and the very distant 
sound of guns, guns, guns — the sound that never 
stops day and night. I pressed on my right hand 
and with a quick turn was up on my feet out of 
the trench, on the hill-side ; for I was just over 
the brow on the reverse slope; and out of sight 
of the enemy lines. I took off my steel helmet 
and put it on the ground, while I stretched out 
my arms and clenched my hands. 



''WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 203 

**So this is War," I thought. I realized that 
my teeth were set, and my mouth hard, and my 
eyes, though full of sleep, wide open : silently I 
took in the great experience, the death of those 
well-loved. For of all men in the battalion I 
loved Davidson best. Not that I knew him so 
wonderfully well — but . . . well, one always had 
to smile when he came in; he was so good- 
natured, so young, so delightfully imperturb- 
able. He used to come in and stroke your hair 
if you were bad-tempered. Somehow he re- 
minded me of a cat purring; and perhaps his 
hair and his smile had something to do with it? 
Oh, who can define what they love in those they 
love! 

And then my mind went back over all the in- 
cidents of the last few hours. Together we had 
been through it all: together we had discussed 
death: and last of all I thought how he had 
told me of the funeral that was to be at 9 o 'clock. 
And now he lay beside them. All three had been 
buried at nine o'clock. 

''Dead. Dead," said a voice within me. And 
still I did not move. Still that numbness, that 
dnlness, that tightening across the brain and 
senses. This, too, was something new. Then T 
looked around me, across the moorland. I 
walked along until I could see down over Maple 
Eedoubt and across the valley, where there 



204 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

seemed a slight white mist ; or was it only moon- 
shine! 

Suddenly, ' ' Strength. ' ' I answered the voice. 
"Strong. I am strong." Every muscle in my 
body was tingling at my bidding. I felt an iron 
strength. All this tautness, this numbness, was 
strength. I remembered last night, the feeling 
of irresistible will-power, and my eyes glowed. 
I thought of Davidson, and my eyes glistened: 
the very pain was the birth of new strength. 

Then, even as the strength came, I heard a 
thud, and away on the left a canister blazed into 
the air, climbed, swooped, and rushed. And the 
vulgar din of its bursting rent all the stillness of 
the night. A second followed suit. And as it, 
too, burst, it seemed a clumsy mocking at me, a 
mocking that ran in echoes all along the still 
valley. 

''Strength," it sneered. "Strength." 

And all my iron will seemed beating against 
a wall of steel, that must in the end wear me 
down in a useless battering. 

"War," I cried. "How can my will batter 
against war?" I thought of Davidson's smil- 
ing face ; and then I thought of the blind clumsy 
canister. And I felt unutterably weak and 
powerless. What did it matter what I thought 
or did, whether I was weak or strong? What 
power had I against this irresistible impersonal 
machine, this war? And I remembered how an 



"WHOM THE GODS LOVE" 205 

hour or so ago the trench-mortar officer had 
asked me whether I wanted him to fire or not, 
and I had answered, ''Good God! Do as you 

d d well like. ' ' What did it matter what he 

did? Yet, last night it had seemed to matter 
everything. 

Slowly there came into my mind that picture 
that later has come to mean to me the true ex- 
pression of war. Only slowly it came now, a 
half-formed image of what my spirit alone 
understood. 

'*A certain man drew a bow at a venture," 
I thought. What of those shells that I had 
called down, last night, at my bidding, standing 
like a god, intoxicated with power, and crying 
' ' Retaliate. More retaliation. ' ' Where did they 
fall? Were other men lying as Davidson lay to- 
night! Had I called down death? Had I strick- 
en families? Probably. Nay, more than prob- 
ably. Certainly. Death. Blind death. That 
was it. Blind death. 

And all the time above me was the white 
moon. I looked at the shadows of my arms as 
I held them out. Such shadows belonged to 
summer nights in England . . in Kent . . . 
Oh ! why was everything so silent? Could noth- 
ing stop this utter folly, this cruel madness, this 
clumsy death? 

And then, at last, the strain gave a little, and 



206 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

my muscles relaxed. I went back and took up 
my helmet. 

''Dead," the voice repeated within me. And 
this time my spirit found utterance ; 

' * Damn ! " I said. ' ' Oh damn ! damn ! Damn ! ' ' 



[Copy] 

Special Repobt — C i Section (Left 
Company) 

The mine exploded by us opposite 80 A at 
6.30 P. M. last night has exposed about 20 yards 
of German parapet. A working-party attempt- 
ing to work there about 12.30 A. M. and again at 
2 A. M. was dispersed at once by our rifle and 
Lewis-gun fire. The parapet has been built up 
sufficiently to prevent our seeing over it, sand- 
bags having been put up from inside the trench. 
Our snipers are closely watching this spot. 

J. B. P. Adams, Lieut. 

O.C. "B" Coy. 
6.30 A. M. 20.3.16. 



CHAPTER XII 
OFFICERS' SERVANTS 

*»Tr^OOR devils on sentry," said Dixon. He 

m"^ shut the door quickly and came over to 
the fire. Outside was a thick blizzard, 
and it was biting cold. He sat down on the bed 
nearest the fire and got warm again. 

*'Look here, Bill, can't we possibly get anjr 
coal?" 

**We sent a fellow into Bray," I answered, 
**but it's very doubtful if he'll get any. Any;- 
way we'll see." 

Tea was finished. The great problem was 
fuel. There were no trees or houses anywhere 
near 71 North. We had burnt two solid planks 
during the day ; these had been procured by the 
simple expedient of getting a lance-corporal 
to march four men to the R.E. dump, select two 
planks, and march them back again. But by 
now the planks had surely been missed, and it 
would be extremely risky to repeat the experi- 
ment, even after dark. So a man had been 
despatched to Bray to try and purchase a sack 
of coal; also, I had told the Mess-sergeant to 
try and buy one for us, and bring it up with the 

207 



208 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

rations. This also was a doubtful quantity. 
Meanwhile, we had a great blaze going, and 
were making the most of it. 

I was writing letters; Dixon was reading; 
Nieolson was seeing to the rum ration; Clark 
was singing, *'Now Neville was a devil," and 
showing his servant Brady how to ''make" a 
hammock. Brady was a patient disciple, but 
his master had slept in a hammock for the first 
time in his life the night before and consequently 
was not a very clear exponent of the art. Ap- 
parently certain things that happened last night 
must be avoided to-night; how they were to be 
avoided was left to Brady's ingenuity. Every 
attempt on his part to solve the problems put 
before him was carefully tested by Clark, and 
accepted or condemned according to its merit 
under the strain of Clark's body. At such times 
of testing the strains of "Neville was a devil" 
would cease. At last Brady hit on some lucky 
adjustment, and the occupant pronounced his 
position to be first rate. Then Brady disap- 
peared behind the curtain that screened the ser- 
vants ' quarters, and the song proceeded un- 
interruptedly, 

"Now Neville was a devil 
A perfect little devil" 

and Clark rocked himself contentedly into a 
state of restful slumber. 



OFFICEES' SERVANTS 209 

Meanwhile, behind the arras the retainers 
prepared their master's meal. This dug-out 
was of the "tubular" pattern, a succession of 
quarter circles of black iron riveted together at 
the top, and so forming a Jong tube, one end of 
which was bricked up and had a brick chimney 
with two panes of glass on each side of it; the 
other led into a small wooden dug-out curtained 
off. Here abode five servants and an orderly. 
I should here state that this dug-out was the 
mo^t comfortable I have ever lived in; as a 
matter of fact it was not a dug-out at all, but 
being placed right under the steep bank at 71 
North it was practically immune from shelling. 
The brick chimney and the glass window-panes 
were certainly almost unique: one imagined it 
must have been built originally by the R.E.'s for 
their own abode! Along the sides were four 
beds of wire-netting stretched over a wooden 
frame with a layer of empty sand-bags for mat- 
tress. In the centre was a wooden table. Over 
this table, in air suspended, floated Clark. 

Meanwhile, as above stated, behind the arras 
the retainers prepared their masters' meal, with 
such-like comments — 

''Who's going for rations to-night?" 

"It's Lewis' turn to-night, and Smith's.'* 

"All right, sergeant." 

"Gr-r-r" (unintelligible). 

"Where's Dodger?" 



210 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

"Out chasing them hares. Didn't you hear 
the Captain say he'd be for it, if he didn't get 
one?" 

*'Gr-r-r. He won't get any hares." 

Here followed a pause, and a lot of noise of 
plates and boxes being moved. Then there was 
a continued crackling of wood, as the fire was 
made up. Followed a lot of coughing, and mut- 
tering, and ''Phew!" as the smoke got too 
thick even for that smoke-hardened crew. 

' ' Phew ! Stop it. Jesus Christ ! ' ' 

More coughing, the door was opened, and 
soon a cold draught sped into our dug-out. 
There was but one door for both. 

"Shut that door!" I shouted. 

"Hi, Lewis, your bloke's calling. Said, 'Shut 
that door.'" 

Then the door shut. More coughing ensued, 
but the smoke was better, apparently, for it soon 
ceased. We were each, by the way, "my bloke" 
to our respective retainers. 

The conversation remained for some time at 
an inaudible level, until I heard the door open 
again, and a shout of "Hullo! Dodger. Coo! 
Jesus Christ! He's all right, isn't he? There's 
a job for you, sergeant, cooking that bloke. Has 
the Captain seen him? Hey ! Look out of that ! 
You'll have the blood all over the place. Get 
a bit of paper. ' ' 

The "sergeant" (Private Oraj^) made no 



OFFICERS' SERVANTS 211 

comments on the prospect of cooking the ''Dodg- 
er's" quarry, and the next minute Private 
Davies, orderly, appeared with glowing though 
rather dirty face holding up a large hare, that 
dripped gore from its mouth into a scrunched- 
up ball of Daily Mail held to its nose like a 
pocket-handkerchief. 

"Look here, Dixon," I said. 

"Devil's alive," exclaimed Dixon. "Then 
you've got one. By Jove! Splendid! I say, 
isn't he a beauty?" And we all went up and 
examined him. He was a hare of the first order. 
To-morrow he should be the chef d'oeuvre in 
"B" Company mess at Morlancourt. For we 
went out of reserve into billets the next morning. 

"How did you get him, Davis?" 

" Oh ! easy enough, sir. I '11 get another if you 
like. There's a lot of them sitting out in the 
snow there. I was only about fifty yards off. 
He don't get much chance with a rifle, sir." 
(Here his voice broke into a laugh.) "It's not 
what you call much sport for him, sir ! I got 
this too, sir!" 

And lo ! and behold ! a plump partridge ! 

"Oh! they're as tame as anything, and you 
can't help getting them in this snow," he said. 

At last the dripping hare was removed from 
the stage to behind the scenes, and Davies joined 
the smothered babel behind the arras. 

"Wonderful fellow, old Davies," said Dixon. 



212 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

'^By the way, Bill," he added. ''How about 
getting the little doctor in to-night for a hand of 
vingt-et-un? Can we manage it all right?" 

I was Mess-president for the time, Edwards 
being away on a course. 

"Oh! yes," I answered. "Rather. I'll send 
a note." 

As I was writing a rather elaborate note (hav- 
ing nothing better to do) requesting the pleas- 
ure of the distinguished presence of the medical 
officer, the man who had been to Bray for coal 
came and reported a fruitless errand. He 
seemed very depressed at his failure, but 
cheered up when we gave him a tot of rum to 
warm him up. (All rum, by the way, is kept 
in the company officer's dug-out; it is the only 
way.) 

Meanwhile, the problem of fuel must be 
faced. A log was crackling away merrily 
enough, but it was the very last. Something 
must be done. 

"Davies," I called out. 

"Sir?" came back in that higher key of his. 
He appeared at the door. 

"Are you going down for rations?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well, look here. There's a sack of coal 
ordered from Sergeant Johnson, but I'm none 
too sure it'll come up to-night. I only ordered 
it yesterday. But I want you to make sure you 



OFFICERS' SEE V ANTS 213 

get it if it is there; in fact you must bring it, 
whether it's there or not. See? If you don't, 
you'll be for it." 

This threat Davies took for what it was worth. 
But he answered : 

"I'll get it, sir. I'll bring something along 
somehow." 

And Davies never failed of his word. 

' ' Good ! Do what you can. ' ' 

Half an hour later he staggered in with a 
sack of coal, and plumped it down, all covered 
with snow. The fire was burning very low, and 
we were looking at it anxiously. The sight of 
this new supply of fuel was wonderful good to 
the eyes. So busy were we in stoking up, that 
we forgot to ask Davies if he had had any 
trouble in getting it. After all, it did not matter 
much. There was the coal ; that was the point. 

Behind the curtain there was a great busi- 
ness. Lewis and Brady had brought up the 
rations; Gray was busy with a big stew, and 
Richards was apparently engaged in getting out 
plates and knives and forks from a box; Davies 
was reading aloud, in the middle of the chaos, 
from the Daily Mail. Sometimes the Mess- 
president took it into his head to inspect the 
servants' dug-out; but it was an unwise pro- 
cedure, for it took away the relish of the meal, 
if you saw the details of its preparation. So 



214 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

long as it was served up tolerably clean, one 
should be satisfied. 

At half-past seven came in Eichards to lay 
the table. The procedure of this was first to 
take all articles on the table and dump them 
on the nearest bed. Then a knife, fork, and 
spoon were put to each place, and a varied col- 
lection of tin mugs and glasses arranged like- 
wise; then came salt and mustard in glass 
potted-meat jars ; bread sitting bareback on the 
newspaper tablecloth; and a bottle of O.V.H. 
and two bottles of Perrier to crown the feast. 
All this was arranged with a deliberate smile, 
as by one who knew the exact value of things, 
and defied instruction in any detail of laying 
a table. Richards was an old soldier, and he 
had won from Dixon at first unbounded praise ; 
but he had been found to possess a lot too much 
talk at present, and had been sat on once or 
twice fairly heavily of late. So now he wore the 
face of one who was politely amused, yet, know- 
ing his own worth, could forbear from malice. 
He gave the table a last look with his head on 
one side, and then departed in silence. 

Suddenly the door flew open, and the doctor 
burst in, shuddering, and knocking the snow off 
his cap. 

"By Jove, Dicker," he cried. ''A bad night 
to go about paying joy visits. But, by Jove, 
I'm jolly glad you asked me. There's the devil 



OFFICEES' SERVANTS 215 

to pay up at headquarters. The C.O.'s raving, 
simply. Some blighter has pinched our coal, 
and there's none to be got anywhere. Good 
Lord, it's too hot altogether. I couldn't stand 
Mess there to-night at any price. I pity old Dale. 
The C.O.'s been swearing like a trooper! He's 
fair mad. ' ' 

"Never mind," he added after a pause. "I 
think we've raised enough wood to cook the 
dinner all right. See you've got coal all right." 

I hoped to goodness Dixon wouldn't put his 
foot in it. But he rose to the occasion and said : 

"Oh, yes. We ordered some coal from Ser- 
geant Johnson. Come on, let's start. Hi! 
Richards!" 

And Richards came in with the stew in a tin 
jug such as is used in civilized lands to hold hot 
water of a morning. And so the doctor forgot 
the Colonel's rage. 

Late that night, after the doctor had gone, I 
called Davies. 

"Davies," I said, "where did you get that 
coal?" 

"Off the ration cart, sir." 

"Was it ours, do you think?" 

"Well, sir, I don't somehow think it was. 
You see, the ration cart came up, and the man 
driving it was up by the horse — and I saw the 
bag o' coal there, like. So I said to Lewis, 
'Lewis, you see to the rations. I'll take the 



216 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

coal up quick!' Then I heard the man up by 
the horse say, 'There's coal there for head- 
quarters.' *0h, yes,' I said, 'that's all right, 
but this here was ordered off Sergeant John- 
son yesterday,' I said. And I made off quick." 

' ' Good Lord ! " I exclaimed. ' * Was Sergeant 
Johnson there?" 

"No," answered Davies. *'He came later. 
I said to Lewis just now, 'What about that 
coal?' And he said Sergeant Johnson came 
just after and starting kicking up some bit of a 
row, sir, about some coal; but Lewis, he said 
he didn't know nothing about any coal, and the 
man at the horse he didn't know who I was, sir ; 
it was quite dark, you see, sir. Lewis said Ser- 
geant Johnson got the wind up a bit, sir, about 
losing the coal ..." 

"Look here Davies," I remarked solemnly, 
"do you realize that that cpal was for head- 
quarters ..." 

"I couldn't say, sir," began Davies. 

"But I can," said I. "Look here, you must 
just set a limit somewhere. I know I said you 
must get some coal, somewhere. But I wasn't 
exactly thinking of bagging the C.O.'s coal. As 
a matter of fact he was slightly annoyed, though 
doubtless if he knew it was No. 14 Davies, "B" 
Company orderly, he would abate his wrath. 
Do you realise this is a very serious offence?" 

Davies ' mouth wavered. He could never quite 



OFFICERS' SERVANTS 217 

understand tliis method of procedure. He looked 
at the blazing fire and his eyes twinkled. Then 
he understood. 

"Yes, sir," he said. 

"All right," I replied. "Don't let it occur 
again." 

And it never did — ^at least, not headquarters 
coal. 

We did not get back to Morlancourt till nearly 
half-past three the next day. Things were not 
going well in our billet at the butcher's shop. 
Gray, the cook, and two of the servants had been 
sent on early to get the valises from the quarter- 
master's stores, and to have a meal ready. We 
arrived to find no meal ready, and what was 
worse, the stove not lit. Coal could not be had 
from the stores, was the statement that greeted 
us. 

"What the blazes do you mean?" shouted 
Dixon. We were really angry as well as raven- 
ous ; for it was freezing hard, and the tiles on 
the floor seemed to radiate ice-waves. 

"Have you asked Madame if she can lend 
us a little to go on with?" I queried. 

No, they had not asked Madame. 

Then followed a blaze of vituperation, and 
Richards was sent at the double into the kitchen. 
Soon Madame appeared, with sticks and coal, 
and lit the fire. We watched the crackles, too 



218 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

cold to do anything else. The adjoining room, 
where Dixon and I slept, was an ice-house, also 
tiled. It was too cold to talk even. 

"C^est froid dans les tranches," said I in 
execrable French. 

**Mais oui, m'sieur Pofficier," said Madame, 
deeply sympathising. 

I thought of the blazing fire in 71 North, but 
it was too cold to say anything more. What 
matter if Madame imagined us standing in a 
foot of snow? So we should have been for the 
most part had we been in the line the last two 
days, instead of in reserve. 

Soon it began to get less icy, and the stove 
looked a little less of the blacklead order. It 
was a kitchen-range really, with a boiler and 
oven; but the boiler was rather leaky. Now, 
as the coal blazed up, life began to ebb back 
again. 

Confound it! The stove was smoking like 
fury. Pah! The flues were all full of soot. 
Dixon was rather an expert on stoves, and said 
tliat all that was needed was a brush. Where 
had all the servants disappeared to? Why 
wasn't someone there? I opened the door into 
our bedroom — el cold blast struck me in the face. 
In the middle of the room, unopened, sat our 
two valises, like desert islands in a sea of red 
tiles. 

"Hang it all, this is the limit," I said, and 



OFFICERS' SERVANTS 219 

ran out into the street, and into the next house, 
where the servants' quarters were. And there, 
in the middle of a pile of half-packed boxes, 
stood Gray, eating a piece of bread. Now I dis- 
covered afterwards that the boxes had just been 
brought in by Cody and Lewis, that Davies and 
Richards had gone after the coal, and were at 
that moment staggering under the weight of it 
on their way from the stores, and that Gray 
could not do anything more, having unpacked 
the boxes, until the coal came. But I did not 
grasp these subtle details of the interior econ- 
omy of the servants' hall, and I broke out into 
a real hot strafe. Why should Gray be stand- 
ing there eating, while the officers shivered and 
starved? 

I returned to Dixon and found Clark and 
Nicolson there; and together we all fumed. 
Then in came the post-corporal with an ac- 
cumulation of parcels, and we stopped fuming. 

*'By Jove," I exclaimed, a few minutes later. 
**The hare. I had forgotten le^ — what is it, 
iievre, levre? I forget. Never mind. Lewis, 
bring the hare along, and ask Madame in your 
best manner if she would do us the honour of 
cooking it for us. Tonight, now.'* 

Presently Madame came in, with Lewis stand- 
ing rather sheepishly behind. She delivered a 
tornado of very fluent French: '* eau-de-vie," 
'* eau-de-vie," was all I could disentangle. 



220 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

''Eau-de-vie?" I asked lier. ''Pourquoi eau- 
de-vie ?" 

' * Brandy, ' ' explained Dixon. 

*'I know that," said I (who did not know that 
eau-de-vie was brandy?) 

"Brandy," said Dixon, "to cook the hare 
with. That's all she wants. Oui, oui, Madame. 
Eau-di-vie. Tout de suite. The doctor's got 
brandy. Send Lewis along to the doctor to ask 
him to dinner, and borrow a little brandy." 

So Lewis was despatched, and returned with 
a little brandy, but the doctor could not come. 

"Never mind," we said. 

Meanwhile some tea was on the table, and 
bully and bread and butter ; there was no sugar, 
however. Eichards smiled and said the rats had 
eaten it all in 71 North, but Davies was buying 
some. Whenever anything was missing, these 
rats had eaten it, just as they were responsible 
for men's equiprient and packs getting torn, 
and their emergency rations lost. In many cases 
the excuse was quite a just one; but when it 
came to rats running off with canteen lids, our 
sympathy for the rat-ridden Tommy was not al- 
ways very strong. 

To-day, a new reason was found for the loss of 
three teaspoons. 

"Lost in the scuffle, sir, the night of the raid," 
was the answer given to the demand for an ex- 
planation. 



OFFICEBS' SERVANTS 221 

"What scuffle?" I asked. 

"Why, the box got upset, sir, the night of the 
raid when we all stood to in a bit of a hurry, 
sir." 

I remembered there had been some confusion 
and noise behind the arras that night when the 
Germans raided on the left; apparently all the 
knives and forks had fallen to the ground and 
several had snapped under the martial trampling 
of feet when our retainers stood to arms. For 
many days afterwards when anything was lost, 
one's anger was appeased by "Lost in the scuffle, 
sir." At last it got too much of a good thing. 

"Why this new teapot, Davies?" I said a few 
days later. 

"The old one was lost in the scuffle, sir." 

"Look here," I said. "We had the old one 
yesterday, and this morning I saw it broken on 
Madame's manure heap. Here endeth 4ost in 
the scuffle. ' See ? Go back to rats. ' ' 

"Very good, sir." 

That night, about ten o'clock, when Clark, 
Nicolson, and Brownlow (who had been our 
guest) had gone back to their respective billets, 
. Dixon and I were sitting on a comfortable red- 
plush settee in front of the stove, our feet up on 
the brass bar that ran along the top-front of 
it. This settee made amends for very many 
things, such as : a tile floor ; four doors, one of 
which scraped most excruciatingly over the tiles, 



222 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

and another being glass-panelled allowed in 
much cold air from the butcher's shop ; no entry 
for the servants save either through the butch- 
er's shop or through the bedroom via the open 
window ; very little room to turn round in, when 
we were all there ; a smell of stale lard that per- 
meated the whole establishment ; and finally, the 
necessity of moving the settee every time 
Madame or Mam'selle wanted to get to either 
the cellar or the stairs. 

But now all these disabilities were removed, 
everyone else having gone off to bed, and Dixon 
and I were talking lazily before turning in also. 
I had a large pan of boiling water waiting on the 
top of the range, and my canvas bath was all 
ready in the next room. 

* ' Ah ! the discomfort of it ! " ejaculated Dixon. 
**The terrible discomfort of it all!" 

*'How they are pitying us at home," I replied. 
** 'Those rabbit holes! I can't think how you 
keep the water out of them at all!' Can't you 
hear them? 'And isn't that bully beef most 
horribly tough and hard! Ugh! I couldn't 
bear it.' " I tried to imitate a lady's voice, but 
it was not a great success. I was out of practice. 

"Yes," said Dixon, thinking of the extraordi- 
narily good jugged hare produced by Madame. 
Then his thoughts turned to Davies, the hunter 
who was responsible for the feast. 



OFFICERS' SERVANTS 223 

"Wonderful fellow, old Davies," he added. 
**In fact they're all good fellows." 

"He's a shepherd boy," I said. "Comes 
from Blaenau Festiniog, a little village right up 
in the Welsh mountains. I know the place. A 
few years ago he was a boy looking after sheep 
out on the hills all day ; a wide-eyed Welsh boy, 
with a sheep-dog trotting behind him. He's 
rather like a sheep-dog himself, isn't he?" 

"Gad, he's a wonderful fellow. But they all 
are, you know. Bill. Look at your chap, Lewis ; 
great clumsy red-faced fellow, with his piping 
voice, that sometimes gets on your nerves." 

"He's too lazy at times," I broke in; "but 
he's honest, dead honest. He was a farm hand! 
Good heavens, fancy choosing a fellow out of the 
farm-yard to act as valet and waiter ! I remem- 
ber the first time he waited ! He was so nervous 
he nearly dropped everything, and his face like 
that fire ! 'Brien said he was tight ! ' ' 

"Richards talks a jolly sight too much, some- 
times — but after all what does it matter? They 
try their best; and think how we curse them! 
Look at the way I cursed about that stove this 
afternoon : as soon as anything goes wrong, we 
strafe like blazes, whether it's their fault or not. 
A fellow in England would resign on the spot. 
But they don't care a damn, and just carry on. 
This cursing's no good. Bill. Hang it all, they're 



224 NOTHINa OF IMPOETANCE 

doing their bit same as we are, and they have a 
d — d sight harder time." 

**I don't think they worry much about the 
strafing," I said. ''It's part of the ordinary 
routine. Still, I agree, we do strafe them for 
thousands of things that aren't their fault." 

' ' They're a sort of safety-valve, ' ' he answered 
with a laugh. "I don't know how it is, one 
would never dream of cursing the men like we 
do these fellows. You know as well as I do. Bill, 
the only way to run a company is by love. It's 
no earthly use trying to get the men behind you, 
by cursing them day and night. I really must 
try and stop cursing these servants. After all, 
they're the best fellows in the world." 

* ' The men curse all right, ' ' I said, ' * when they 
don't get their food right. I guess we're all ani- 
mal, after all. It's merely a method of getting 
things done quickly. Besides, you know per- 
fectly well you won't be able to stop blazing 
away when there's no fire or food. It creates an 
artificial warmith." 

*'D — d artificial," laughed he. 

There was a silence. 

''By Jove, Bill," he said at last, getting up to 
go to bed. "When's this war going to end?" 

To which I made no reply, but moved my bath 
out of the icy bedroom and dragged it in front 
of the fire. 



CHAPTER Xin 
MINES 



'''TMIE Colonel wants to speak to 0. C. *B,' 
I sir." It was midday. 

"It's about that wire," said Edwards. 
''But we couldn't get any more out without 
stakes. ' ' 

"Oh, I don't expect it's about the wire," I 
said, as I hurried out of the Straw Palace. ' ' The 
CO. knows we can't get the stakes." 

No, it was nothing to do with the wire. 

"Just a minute, sir," said the telephone or- 
derly. "Hi! Headquarters. Is that you, 
George? O.C. 'B's' here now. Just a minute, 
sir. ' ' 

A pause, followed by: 

' ' Commanding Officer, sir, ' ' and I was handed 
the receiver. 

' ' Yes, sir, ' ' I said. ' ' This is Adams. ' ' 

"Oh! that you, Adams'? Well, look here — 
about this mine going up to-night. Got your 
map there? Well, the mining officer is here now, 
and he says . . . Look here, you'd better come 

225 



226 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

down here now. Yes, come here now. ' ' 

''Very good, sir," but the CO. had rung off 
with a jerk, and only a singing remained in my 
ears. 

"Got to go down and explain in person why 
the officer in charge of 'B' Company wirers did 
not get out twenty coils last night," I said to 
Edwards as I hurried off down Old Kent Road. 
''The C.O.'s in an 'I gave a distinct order' 
mood. Cheero!" 

On entering the Headquarters' dug-out in 
Maple Redoubt, I found the CO. engaged in con- 
versation with an artillery officer : there had been 
another raid last night on the left, and our ar- 
tillery had sent a lot of stuff over. This was the 
subject under discussion. 

"I think you did d — d well," said the CO. as 
the officer left. "Well, Adams, I thought it 
would be easiest if you came down. Here's our 
friend from the underworld and he'll explain 
exactly what he's going to do"; and I saw the 
R.E. officer for the first time. He had been stand- 
ing in the gloom of the further end of the dug- 
out. 

"Look here," began the Colonel as he laid out 
the trench map on the table. "Here is where we 
blow to-night at six," (and he made a pencil dot 
in the middle of the grass of No Man's Land 
midway between the craters opposite the Loop 



MINES 227 

and the Fort. See Map III). ''And here, all 
round here" (he drew his pencil round and 
round in a blacker and yet blacker circle) '4s 
roughly where the edge of the crater will come. 
Isn't that right, Armstrong?" 

"Yes," was the reply, "the crater edge won't 
come right up to the front trench, but I don't 
want anyone in the front trench, as it will prob- 
ably be squeezed up in one or two places. ' ' 

"Exactly," said the Colonel. "Do you think 
this blow will completely connect up the two 
craters on either side?" 

"Oh, certainly," was the answer. "There's 
no question of it. You see, we've put in (here 
followed figures and explosives incomprehens- 
ible to the lay mind). "It'll be the biggest mine 
we 've ever blown in this sector. ' ' 

"A surface mine, I suppose?" I asked. 

"Almost certainly," said the R. E. officer. 
"You see, their gallery in only ten feet above 
ours, and they might blow any minute. But 
they're still working. We wanted to get an- 
other twenty feet out before blowing, but it 
isn't safe. Anyway, we are bound to smash up 
all their galleries there completely, though I 
doubt if we touch their parapet at all." He 
spoke almost impatiently, as one who talks of 
things that have been his main interest for 
weeks, and tries to explain the whole thing in 



228 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

a few words. "But," he added, "I don't want 
any men in that trench." 

The mining officers always presumed that the 
infantry clung tenaciously like limpets to their 
trench, and had to be very carefully removed 
in case a mine was going up. As a matter of 
fact, the infantry always made a rule of clearing 
the trench half as far again as the mining 
officer enjoined, and were always inclined to 
want to depart from the abhorred spot long 
before the time decided upon ! 

''That's clear enough," said the Colonel. 
''Then from here to here (and he made pencil 
blobs where I have marked A and B on Map 
III) we will clear the trench. Get your Lewis 
guns placed at these two points (A and B), 
ready to open fire as soon as the mine has gone 
up. And get your bombers ready to seize the 
crater edge as soon as it's dark enough. You'll 
want to have some tools and sand-bags ready, 
and your wirers should have plenty of goose- 
berries and all the stakes we can get you. 
Right." 

As I went up 76 Street at half-past five, I 
realized that I had been rushing about too much 
and had forgotten tea. So I sent Davies back 
and told him to bring up a mug of tea and some- 
thing to eat. No sooner had he disappeared 
than I met a party of six R.E. 's, the two leading 



MINES 229 

men carrying canaries in cages. They held them 
out in front, like you hold out a lantern on a 
muddy road, and they were covered from head 
to foot in white ohalk-dust. They were doing a 
sort of half-run down the trench, known among 
the men as the '^R.E. step." It is always 
adopted by them if there is any ''strafing" go- 
ing on, or on such occasions as the present, 
when the charge has been laid, the match lit, 
and the mine-shaft and galleries, canaries and 
all, evacuated. (The canaries are used to de- 
tect gas fumes, not as pets.) 

When I reached the Fort, I found No. 7 
Platoon already filing out of the trench area 
that had been condemned as dangerous. 

"You're very early, Sergeant Hayman," I 
said. I looked at my watch. 

"Oh, all right," I added, "it's twenty to six; 
very well. Have you got all the bomb boxes and 
S.A.A. out?" 

"Yes, sir. Everything's clear." 

"Very well, then. All those men Btot detailed 
as tool and sand-bag party can get in dug-outs, 
ready to come back as soon as I give orders. 
There will probably be a bit of ' strafing. ' ' ' 

"Very good, sir." 

The Lewis-gun team emerged from its dug- 
out twenty yards behind the Fort, in rather a 
snail-like fashion. I arranged where the N.C.O. 
and two men should stand, just at the corner of 



230 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

the Fort, but in the main trench (at B in map). 
The rest of the team I sent back to its burrow. 
Edwards had made all arrangements for the 
other team. 

Ten to six. It was a warm evening early in 
April, and there was a deathly calm. These 
hushes are hateful and unnatural, especially at 
''stand to" in the evening. In the afternoon 
an after-dinner slumber is right and proper, 
but as dusk creeps down it is well known that 
everyone is alive and alert, and a certain visible 
expression is natural and welcome. This eve- 
ning silence is like the pause between the light- 
ning and the thunder; worst of all is the still- 
ness after the enemy has blown a mine at 
"stand to," for ten to one he is going to blow 
another at "stand down." 

The sun set in a blaze of red, and in the south 
the evening star glowed in a deepening blue. 
What will have happened by the time the day 
has returned with its full light and sense of 
security 1 

"Here you are, sir," I heard suddenly at my 
elbow, and found my mug of tea, two large 
pieces of bread and butter and cake, presented 
by Davies on a box-lid salver. 

"I don't know if this is enough, sir. Lewis 
he wanted me to bring along a pot o' jam, sir. 
But I said Mr. Adams he won't have time for 
all that" 



MINES 231 

"I should think not. Far too much as it is. 
Here, put the cake on the fire-step, and take 
hold of this notebook, will you?" And so, with 
the mug in one hand, and a piece of bread and 
butter in the other, Scott found me as he came 
along at that moment, looking, as he told me 
afterwards, exactly like the Mad Hatter in Alice 
in Wonderland, 

''What's the time?" I enquired, munching 
hard. 

''I make it two minutes to six," said Scott. 

''Go up a shixo '-clock, " I said, taking a very 
big mouthful indeed. 

"Who put the sugar in this tea?" I asked 
Davies a minute later. 

"I did," said Davies. 

"Far too much. I shall never get you fel- 
lows to understand ..." 

But the sentence was not finished. There was 
a faint "Bomp" from goodness knows where, 
and a horrid shudder. The earth shook and 
staggered, and I set my legs apart to keep my 
balance. It felt as if the whole ground were 
going to be tilted up. The tea splashed all over 
the fire-step as I hastily put it down. Then I 
looked up. There was nothing. What had hap- 
pened? Was it a camouflet after all? Then, 
over the sandbags appeared a great green mea- 
dow, slowly, taking its time, not hurrying, a 
smooth curved dome of grass, heaving up, up, 



232 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

up, like a rising cake; then, like a cake, it 
cracked; cracked visibly with bursting brown 
seams; still the dome rose, towering ten, 
twenty feet up above the surrounding level ; and 
then with a roar the black smoke hurtled into 
the air, followed by masses of pink flame cream- 
ing up into the sky, giving out a bonfire heat and 
lighting up the twilight with a lurid glare ! Then 
we all ducked to avoid the shower of mud and 
dirt and chalk that pattered down like hail. 

** Magnificent, " I said to Scott. 

''Wonderful," he answered. 

*'The mud's all in your tea, sir," said Davies. 

*'Dr — r-r-r-r-r," rattled the Lewis guns. The 
Lewis gunners with me had been amazed rather 
than thrilled by the awful spectacle, but were 
now recovered from the shock, and emptying 
two or three drums into the twilight void. I 
was peering over into a vast chasm, where two 
minutes ago had been a smooth meadow full of 
buttercups and toadstools. 

Suddenly I found Sergeant Hayman at my 
elbow. 

''The trench is all fallen in, sir. You can't get 
along at all." And so the night's work began. 

At 1 A. M. I was lying flat down on soft 
spongy grass atop of a large crater-lip quite 
eight feet higher than the ground level. Beside 
me lay two bombers and a box of bombs: we 
were all peering out into a space that seemed 



MINES 233 

enormous. Suddenly a German starlight rock- 
eted up, and as it burst the great white bowl of 
the crater jumped into view. Then a few rifle- 
shots rang across the gulf. There followed a 
deeper darkness than before. Behind me was a 
wiring-party not quite finished; also the sound 
of earth being shovelled by tired men. A strong 
working-party of ''A" Company had been en- 
gaged for four hours clearing the trench that 
had been squeezed up ; all available men of " B " 
Company not on sentry had been digging a zig- 
zag sap from the trench to the post on the crater- 
lip where I lay. Two other pairs of bombers 
lay out on the crater edge to right and left ; be- 
hind me the wirers had run out a thin line of 
stakes and barbed wire behind the new crater; 
this wire passed over the sap, which would not 
be held by day. One wirer had had a bullet 
through the leg, but we had suffered no other 
casualties. Another hour, and I should be off 
duty. Altogether, a good show. 



II 

I was reading Blackwood's in a dug-out in 
Maple Eedoubt. It was just after four, and I 
was lying on my bed. Suddenly the candle flick- 
ered and went out. I had to get up to ring the 
bell, and when I did get up, the bell did not ring, 



234 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

so I went out and called Lewis. The bell, by 
the way, was an arrangement of string from our 
dug-out to the servants' next door. 

''Bring me a candle," I said, as Lewis ap- 
peared, evidently flushed and blear-eyed from 
sleep. ''I don't know where you keep them. I 
can't find one anywhere." 

Lewis fished under the bed and discovered a 
paper packet of candles, and lit one. ''By the 
by," I added, "tell the pioneer servant (this 
was Private Davies, my orderly) to fix up that 
bell, will you I And I think we'll be ready for 
tea as soon as you can get it. What do you say, 
Teddy? Hullo, Clark! What are you doing 
here? Come in and have tea." 

"Thanks, I will," said Clark, who had just 
come down Park Lane. "I was coming to in- 
vite myself, as a matter of fact. ' ' 

"Grood man," we said. Clark was no longer 
of "B" Company, having passed from Lewis- 
gun officer to the Brigade Machine-gun Corps. 
So we did not see very much of him. 

At that moment Sergeant-Major Brown ar- 
rived and stood at the door. He saluted. 

"Come in, sergeant-major." 

"The tea's up, sir." 

"Oh, all right," I said. "I'll go. Don't wait 
if tea comes in, Edwards. But I shan't be a 
minute." 

As I went along with that tower of strength, 



MINES 235 

the company sergeant-major, followed by an 
orderly carrying two rum jars produced from 
under my bed, I discussed the subject of work- 
ing-parties for the night, and other such dull 
details of routine. Also we discussed leave. His 
dug-out was at the corner of Old Kent Road and 
Park Lane, and there I found the "Quarter" 
(Company Sergeant-Major Roberts) waiting 
with the five dixies of hot tea, just brought up 
on the ration trolley from the Citadel. 

Sergeant Roberts saluted, and informed me 
that all was correct. Then the sergeant-major 
spilled the contents of the two jars into the five 
dixies, and as he did so the ten orderlies, two 
from each platoon, and two Lewis-gunners, 
made off with the dixies. Then I made off, but 
followed by Sergeant Roberts with several pa- 
pers to sign, and five pay books in which entries 
had to be made for men going on leave. One 
signed the pay-book, and also a paper to the 
quartermaster authorising him to pay 125 
francs (the usual sum) to the undermentioned 
men, out of the company balance which was de- 
posited with him on leaving billets. I signed 
everything Sergeant Roberts put before me, al- 
most without question. 

''Well, Clark," I said, as we sat down to a 
tea of hot buttered toast, jam and cake. "How 
goes it?" 

"I've just been down a mine-shaft with that 



236 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

R.E. officer, I forget his name — the fellow with 
the glasses." 

''I know," I replied; ''I don't know his name 
either, but it doesn't matter. Did you go right 
down, and along the galleries 1 How frightfully 
interesting. I always mean to go, but somehow 
don't. Well, what about it?" 

''By Jove," said Clark. ''It's wonderful. It's 
all as white as snow, dazzling white. I never 
realized that before, although you see these 
R.E.'s coming out all covered with white chalk- 
dust. First of all you go down three or four 
ladders; it's awfully tricky work at the sort of 
halts on the way down, because there's a little 
platform, and very often the ladder goes down a 
different side of the shaft after one of these 
halts; and if you don't notice, you lower your 
foot to go on down the same side as you were 
going before, and there's nothing there. The 
first time I did this and looked down and saw a 
dim light miles below, it quite gave me a turn. 
It's a terrible long way down, and of course 
you go alone; the R.E. officer went first, and 
got ahead of me." 

"Have some more tea, and go on." 

"Well, down there it's fearfully interesting. 
I didn't go far up the gallery where they're 
working, because you can't easily pass along; 
but the R.E. officer took me along a gallery that 



MINES 237 

is not being worked, and there, all alone, at the 
end of it was a man sitting. He was simply 
sitting, listening. Then I listened through his 
stethoscope thing ..." 

"I know," I interposed. It is an instrument 
like a doctor's stethoscope, and by it you can 
hear underground sounds a hundred yards away 
as clearly as if they were five yards off. 

* ' . . . and I could hear the Boche working as 
plainly as anything. Good heavens, it sounded 
about a yard off. Yet they told me it was forty 
yards. By Jove, it was weird. 'Pick . . . pick 
. . . pick.' I thought it must be our fellows 
really, but theirs made a different sound, and 
not a bit the same. But, you know, that fellow 
sitting there alone ... as we went away and 
left him, he looked round at us with staring 
eyes just like a hunted animal. To sit there for 
hours on end, listening. Of course, while you 
hear them working, it's all right, they won't 
blow. But if you don't hear them! My God, I 
wouldn't like to be an E.E. It's an awful 
game. ' ' 

''By Jove," said Edwards. "How fearfully 
interesting! Is it cold down there?" 

"Fairly. I really didn't notice." 

"I must go down," I said. "We always 
laugh at these E.E.'s for looking like navvies, 
and for going about without gas-helmets or 



238 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

rifles. But really they are wonderful men. It's 
awful being liable to be buried alive any mo- 
ment. Somehow death in the open is far less 
terrible. Ugh! Do you remember that R.E., 
Teddy, we saw running down the Old Kent 
Road? It was that night the Boche blew the 
mine in the Quarry. Jove, Clark, that was a 
sight. I was just going up from Trafalgar 
Square, when I heard a running, and there was 
a fellow, great big brawny fellow, naked to the 
waist, and gray all over; and someone had 
given him his equipment and rifle in a hurry, 
and he 'd got his equipment over his bare skin ! 
The men were fearfully amused. 'R.E.,' they 
said, and smiled. But, by God, there was a 
death look in that man's eyes. He'd been down 
when the Boche blew their mine, and as near as 
possible buried alive. No, it's a rotten game." 

As I spoke, the ground shuddered, and the 
tea-things shook. 

' * There is a mine, ' ' we all exclaimed together. 

**I wonder if it's ours, or theirs," said Ed- 
wards. 

*'I saw Hills, this afternoon," I answered, 
**and he said nothing about a mine. I'm sure 
he would have, if we had been going to send one 
up. No, I bet that's a Boche mine. Good thing 
you're out of it, Clark. Oh, don't go. Well, 
cheero ! if you must. Look us up of tener. Good 
luck!" 



MINES 239 

Clark departed, and I resumed Blackwood's. 

"I say, Edwards," said I, after a while. 
' ' This stuff of Ian Hay 's is awfully good. This 
about the signallers is top-hole. You can simply 
smell it!" 

''After you with it," was the reply. 

''There you are," I said at last. "It's called 
'Carry On'; there have been several others in 
the same series. You know the ' First Hundred 
Thousand'?" 

"No." 

' ' Good stuff, ' ' said I. ' ' Good readable stuff ; 
the sort you'd give to your people at home. But 
it leaves out bits." 

"Such as . . . ?" 

"Oh, well, the utter fed-upness, and the dull- 
ness — and — ^well, oh, I don't know. You read it 
and see." 

That was a bad night. The Boche mine had 
caught our E.E.'s this time. All the night 
through they were rescuing fellows from our 
mine gallery. Seven or eight were killed, most 
of them "gassed"; two of "A" Company were 
badly gassed too while aiding in the rescue work. 
This mine gas is, I suppose, very like that en- 
countered in coal mines; and the explosion of 
big charges of cordite must create cracks and 
fissures underground that release these gases 
in all directions. I do not profess to write as an 



240 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

expert on this. At any rate they were all night 
working to get the fellows out. One man when 
rescued disobeyed the doctor's strict injunctions 
to lie still for half an hour before moving away 
from where he was put, just outside the mine 
shaft; and this cost him his life. He hurried 
down the Old Kent Eoad, and dropped dead with 
heart failure at the bottom of it. Hills told me 
he felt the pulses of two men who had been 
gassed and were waiting the prescribed half- 
hour ; and they were going like a watch ticking. 
Yes, it was a bad night. I got snatches of sleep, 
but always there was the sound of stretchers 
being carried past our dug-out to the doctor's 
dressing-station; several times I went out to 
investigate how things were going. But there 
was nothing I could do. It was my duty to sleep : 
we were going up in the line to-morrow. But 
sleep does not always come to order. 

Before dawn we ''stood to," and it was quite 
light as I inspected the last rifle of No. 6 Pla- 
toon. They were just bringing the last of the 
gassed miners down to the dressing-station. I 
stood at the corner of Park Lane, and watched. 
The stretcher-bearers came and looked at two 
forms lying on stretchers close by me ; then they 
asked me if I thought it would be all right to take 
those stretchers, and leave the dead men there 
another hour. I said if they wanted the stretch- 



MINES 241 

ers, yes. So they lifted the bodies off, and went 
away with the stretchers. There were several 
men standing about, silent, as usual, in the 
presence of death. I looked at those two E.E.'s 
as they lay quite uncovered; grim their faces 
were, grim and severe. I told a man to get 
something and cover them up, until the 
stretcher-bearers came and removed them. And 
as I strode away in silence between my men, I 
felt that my face was grim too. I thought of 
Clark's description, a few hours back, of the 
man sitting alone in the white chalk gallery, 
listening, listening, listening. And now ! 

Once more I thought of ''blind death." The 
Germans who had set light to the fuse at tea- 
time were doubtless sleeping the sleep of men 
who have worked well and earned their rest. 
And here . . . They knew nothing of it, would 
never know whom they had slain. And I re- 
membered the night Scott and I had watched our 
big mine go up. "Wonderful," we had said, 
"magnificent." And in the morning the R.E. 
officer had told us that we had smashed all their 
galleries up, and that they would not trouble us 
there for a fortnight at least. "A certain man 
drew a bow at a venture, ' ' I said again, vaguely 
remembering something, but stiffening myself 
suddenly, and stifling my imagination. 

I met Edwards by the dug-out as he returned 
from inspecting the Lewis guns. 



242 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

''Eemember," I said, **I told you the * First 
Hundred Thousand' leaves out bits? Did you 
see those E.E.'s who were gassed?" 

Edwards nodded. 

"Well," I added, ''that's a thing it leaves 
out." 



CHAPTEE XIV 
BILLETS 

I. MOENING 

**rTr^WO hours' pack drill, and pay for a new 
I handle," I said. 

"Right — Turn!" said the sergeant-ma- 
jor. " Right— Wheel— Quick— Mar ch ! Get 
your equipment on and join your platoon at 
once. ' ' 

This last sentence was spoken in a quick un- 
dertone, as the prisoner stepped out of the door 
into the road. I was filling up the column 
headed ''Punishment awarded" on a buff-col- 
ored Army Form, to which I appended my sig- 
nature. The case just dealt with was a very 
dull and commonplace one, a man having "lost" 
his entrenching tool handle. Most of these 
"losses" occurred in trenches, and were dealt 
with the first morning in billets at company 
orderly-room. This man had been engaged on 
special fatigue work the last few days; hence 
the reason why the loss had not been checked 
before, and came up on this last morning in 
billets. 

243 



244 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

''No more prisoners?" I asked the company 
sergeant-major. 

"No more prisoners, sir," he answered. I 
then rather hurriedly signed several returns 
made out by Sergeant Eoberts, the company 
quartermaster-sergeant, and promised to come 
in later and sign the acquittance rolls. These 
are the pay-lists, made out in triplicate, which 
are signed by each man as he draws his pay. 
The original goes to the Paymaster in England, 
one carbon copy to the adjutant, and one is re- 
tained by the company-commander. We had 
paid out the first day in billets. This time 
* ' working-parties ' ' had been tolerable. We had 
arrived back in billets about half -past three in 
the afternoon ; the next morning had been spent 
in a march to the divisional baths at Treux (two 
miles away), in cleaning up, kit-inspection, and 
a little arm-drill and musketry practice; in the 
afternoon we paid out. Then followed three 
days of working-parties, up on the support line 
at Crawley Ridge ; and now, we had this last day 
in which to do a little company work. There 
had been running parade at seven-thirty. Owen 
had taken this, and I confess that I had not yet 
breakfasted. So I hurried off now at 9.10 to 
gulp something down and be at battalion or- 
derly-room at 9.30 sharp. 

The company office was a house of two rooms ; 
one was the ''office" itself, with a blanket-clad 



BILLETS 245 

table and a couple of chairs in the middle, and 
all around were strewn strange boxes, and bun- 
dles of papers and equipment. On the walls 
were pictures from illustrated English papers; 
one of Nurse Cavell, another of howitzers firing ; 
and several graphic bayonet-charges at Verdun, 
pictured by an artist who must have "glowed" 
as he drew them in his room in Chelsea. In the 
other room slept the C.S.M. and C.Q.M.S. (more 
familiar as the '^ sergeant-major" and the 
' ' quartermaster " ) . 

From this house, then, I stepped out into the 
glaring street. It was the end of May, and the 
day promised to be really quite hot. I have 
already explained how completely shut off from 
the trenches one felt in Morlancourt, sheltered 
as it was in a cup of the hills and immune from 
shelling. Now as I walked quickly along the 
street, past our battalion "orderly-room," and 
returned the immaculate salute of Sergeant- 
Ma j or Shandon, the regimental sergeant-major, 
who was already marshalling the prisoners 
ready for the Colonel at half-past nine, I felt 
a lightness and freshness of body that almost 
made me think I was free of the war at last. 
My Sam Browne belt, my best tunic with its 
polished buttons, and most of all, I suppose, the 
effect of a good sleep and a cold bath, all con- 
tributed to this feeling, as well as the scent from 
the laburnum and lilac that looked over the gar- 



246 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

den wall opposite the billet that was our 
''Mess." 

I found Edwards just going off to inspect 
''B" Company Lewis gunners, whom he was 
taking on the range the first part of the morn- 
ing. 

''Hullo!" he said, "youVe not got much 
time." 

"No," said I. "My own fault for getting up 
late. Got a case for the CO. too. Is my watch 
right? I make it seventeen minutes past." 

' ' Nineteen, I make it. " 

"Wish I hadn't asked you," I laughed. "No 
porridge, Lewis. Bring the eggs and bacon in 
at once. This tea '11 do. There's no milk, though. 
What?" 

Edwards had asked something. He repeated 
his question, which was whether I wanted Jim, 
the company horse, this afternoon. I thought 
rapidly, and the scent of the lilac decided me. 

"Yes," I answered. "Sorry, but I do." 

' ' Oh, all right ; I expect I can get old Muskett 
to let me have one. ' ' 

Muskett was the transport officer. 

' ' Eighto, ' ' said I. "Go teach thy Lewis gun- 
ners how to drill little holes in the chalk-bank. ' ' 

He clattered off over the cobbles of the gar- 
den path, and in a few minutes I followed suit, 
running until I rounded a corner and came into 
view of the orderly-room, when I altered my 



BILLETS 247 

gait to a dignified walk and arrived just as the 
Colonel appeared from the opposite direction. 

"Parade! Tchern!!" shouted Sergeant-Ma- 
jor Shandon ; and a moment later the four com- 
pany commanders came to attention and saluted 
as the Colonel passed in, sprinkling "Good 
mornings" to right and left. 

I had one very uninteresting case of drunken- 
ness; "A" had a couple of men who had over- 
stayed their pass in England; "C" had a case 
held over from the day before for further evi- 
dence, and was now dismissed as not proven; 
while "D" had an unsatisfactory sergeant who 
was "severely reprimanded." All these cases 
were quickly and unerringly disposed of, and 
we company commanders saluted again and 
clattered down the winding stair-case out into 
the sunshine. 

I had to pass from one end of the village to 
the other. The orderly-room was not far from 
our company "Mess" and was at a cross-roads. 
Opposite, in one of the angles made by the junc- 
tion of the four roads, was a deep and usually 
muddy horse-pond. But even here the mud was 
getting hard under this spell of warm May 
weather, and the innumerable ruts and hoof- 
marks were crystallising into a permanent pat- 
tern. As I walked along the streets I passed 
sundry Tommies acting as road-scavengers; 
"permanent road fatigue" they were called, 



248 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

although they were anything but permanent, 
being changed every day. Formerly they had 
seemed to be engaged in a Herculean, though 
unromantic, task of scraping great rolling pud- 
dings of mud to the side of the road, in the vain 
hope that the mud would find an automatic exit 
into neighbouring gardens and ponds ; for Mor- 
lancourt did not boast such modern things as 
gutters. To-day there were large pats of mud 
lining the street, but these were now caked and 
hard, and even crumbling into dust, that 
whisked about among the sparrows. The perma- 
nent road fatigue was gathering waste-paper 
and tins in large quantities, but otherwise was 
having a holiday. 

Women were working, or gossiping at the 
door-steps. The estaminet doors were flung 
wide open, and the floors were being scrubbed 
and sprinkled with sawdust. A little bare-leg- 
ged girl, in a black cotton dress, was hugging a 
great wide loaf; an old man sat blinking in the 
sunshine ; cats were basking, dogs nosing about 
lazily. A party of about thirty bombers passed 
me, the sergeant giving ''eyes right" and wak- 
ing me from meditations on the eternal calm of 
cats. Then I reached the headquarter guard, 
and the sentry saluted with a rattling clap upon 
his butt, and I did my best to emulate his smart- 
ness. So I passed along all the length of the 
shuttered houses of Morlancourt. 



BILLETS 249 

''A great day, this," I tlioiight, as I came to 
the small field where ''B" Company was pa- 
raded; not two hundred and fifty men, as you 
will doubtless assume from the text-books, but 
some thirty or forty men only; one was lucky 
if one mustered forty. Where were the rest, 
you ask? Well, bombers bombing; Lewis gun- 
ners under Edwards ; some on ' ' permanent min- 
ing fatigue," that is, carrying the sand bags 
from the mine-shafts to the dumps; transport, 
pioneers, stretcher-bearers, men under bombing 
instruction, officers' servants, headquarter or- 
derlies, men on leave, etc. etc. The company 
sergeant-major will make out a parade slate 
for you if you want it, showing exactly where 
every man is. But here are forty men. Let's 
drill them. 

Half were engaged in arm-drill under my best 
drill-sergeants ; the other half were doing mus- 
ketry in gas-helmets, an unpleasant practice 
which nothing would induce me to do on a sunny 
May morning. They lay on their fronts, legs 
well apart, and were working the bolts of their 
rifles fifteen times a minute. After a while they 
changed over and did arm-drill, while the other 
half took over the gas-helmets, the mouthpieces 
having first been dipped in a solution of carbolic 
brought by one of the stretcher-bearers in a 
canteen. These gas-helmets were marked D.P. 



250 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

(drill purposes), and each company had so many 
with which to practise. 

When both parties were duly exercised, I gave 
a short lecture on the measures to be adopted 
against the use of Flammeniverfer, which is the 
''Liquid Fire" of the official communiques. I 
had just been to a demonstration of this atrocity 
in the form of a captured German apparatus, 
and my chief object in lecturing the men about 
it was to make it quite clear that the flaming jets 
of burning gas cannot sink into a trench, but, 
as a matter of fact, only keep level so long as 
they are propelled by the driving power of the 
hose apparatus; as water from a hose goes 
straight, and then curves down to the ground, 
so gas, even though it be incandescent, goes 
straight and then rises. In the trench you are 
unscathed, as we proved in the demonstration, 
when they sprayed the flaming gas over a trench 
full of men. Indeed, the chief effect of this 
flammenwerfer is one of frightfulness, as the 
Germans cannot come over until the flames have 
ceased. The men were rather inclined to gape 
at all this, but I found the words had sunk in 
when I asked what should be done if the enemy 
used this diabolical stuff against us. "Get 
down at the bottom of the trench, sir, and as 
soon as they stop it, give the s 'ell." 

The rest of the morning we spent ''on the 
range," which meant firing into a steep chalk 



BILLETS 251 

bank at a hundred yards. Targets and paste- 
pot had been procured from the pioneer's shop, 
and after posting a couple of ''look-out" men 
on either side, we started range practice. The 
men are alwaj^s keen about firing on the range, 
and it is really the most interesting and pleasant 
part of the infantryman's training. I watched 
these fellows, hugging their rifle-butt into their 
shoulder, and feeling the smooth wood against 
their cheeks, they wriggled their bodies about 
to get a comfortable position; sometimes they 
flinched as they fired and jerked the rifle ; some- 
times they pressed the trigger as softly, as 
softly. . . . And gradually, carefully, we tried 
to detect and eliminate the faults. Then we 
ended up with fifteen rounds rapid in a minute. 
The "mad minute" it used to be called at home. 
After which we fell the men in, and Paul 
marched them back to the company "alarm 
post" outside the company office, where "B" 
Company always fell in ; while Owen, Nicolson, 
and I walked back together, 

II. Afteenoon 

"I still maintain," said I, an hour later, as we 
finished lunch, "that bully-beef, some sort of 
sauce or pickle, and salad, followed by cheese, 
and ending with a cup of tea, is the proper lunch 
for an officer. I don't mind other officers having 



252 NOTHING OF IMPOBTANCE 

tinned fruit, though, if they like it,'* I added 
with a laugh. 

Owen and Syme were newly joined officers 
for whom the sight of tinned pears or apricots 
had not yet lost a certain glamour that disap- 
peared after months and months. They were 
just finishing the pear course. Hence my last 
remark. 

"I bet if we allowed you to have bully every 
day, ' ' came from Edwards, our Mess president, 
"you'd soon get sick of it." 

*'Try," said I, knowing that he never would. 
I always used to eat of the hot things that would 
appear at lunch, to the detriment of a proper 
appreciation of dinner ; but I always maintained 
the position laid down in the first sentence of 
this section. 

I lit a pipe and strolled out into the garden. 
This was undoubtedly an ideal billet, and a great 
improvement on the butcher's shop, where they 
used always to be killing pigs in the yard and 
letting the blood run all over the place. It was 
a long, one-storied house, set back about fifty 
yards from the road; this fifty yards was all 
garden, and, at the end, completely shutting off 
the road, was a high brick wall. On each side 
of the garden were also high walls formed by the 
sides of stables and outhouses ; the garden was 
thus completely walled round, and the seclusion 



BILLETS 253 

and peace thus entrapped were a very priceless 
possession to us. 

The garden itself was full of life. There were 
box-bordered paths up both sides and down the 
centre, and on the inner side of the paths was an 
herbaceous border smelling very sweet of wall- 
flowers and primulas of every variety. Although 
it was still May, there were already one or two 
pink cabbage-roses out; later, the house itself 
would be covered with them; already the buds 
were showing yellow streaks as they tried to 
burst open their tight green sheaths. In the 
centre of the garden ran a cross path with a 
summer-house of bamboo canes completely cov- 
ered with honeysuckle; that, too, was budding 
already. The rest of the garden was filled witlj 
rows of young green things, peas, and cabbages, 
and I know not what, suitably protected against 
the ravages of sparrows and finches by the usual 
miniature telegraph system of sticks connected 
by cotton decorated with feathers and bits of 
rag. Every bit of digging, hoeing, weeding and 
sowing were performed by Madame and her two 
black-dressed daughters in whose house we were 
now living, and who were themselves putting up 
in the adjoining farmhouse, which belonged to 
them. 

I said that they had done all the digging in 
the garden. I should make one reservation. All 
the potato-patch had been dug by our servants, 



254 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

with the assistance of Gray, the cook. Nor did 
they do it in gratitude to Madame, as, doubtless, 
ideal Tommies would have done. A quarter of it 
was done by Lewis, for carelessness in losing my 
valise; nearly half by the joint effort of the 
whole crew for a thoroughly dirty turn-out on 
commanding officer's inspection; and the rest 
for various other defalcations! We never told 
Madame the reasons for their welcome help ; and 
I am quite sure they never did! 

* ' The worst of this war, ' ' said I to Edwards, 
puffing contentedly at a pipeful of Chairman, 
**is this: it's too comfortable. You could carry 
on like this for years, and years, and years." 

"Wasn't so jolly last time in," muttered the 
wise Edwards. 

"That's exactly the point," I answered; "life 
in the trenches we all loathe, and no one makes 
any bones about it or pretends to like it — except 
for a few rare exciting minutes, which are very 
few and far between. But you come out into 
billets, and recover; and so you can carry on. 
It's not concentrated enough." 

"It's more concentrated for the men than for 
us." 

"Well, yes, very often; but they haven't the 
strain of responsibib'ty. Yes, you are right 
though; and it's less concentrated for the CO., 
still less for the Brigadier, and so on back to the 



BILLETS 255 

Commander-in-Cliief ; and still further to men 
who have never seen a trench at all." 

''I dare say," said Edwards; ''but, as the 
phrase goes, 'What are you going to do abaht 
it?' Here's Jim. Old Muskett's going to send 
me a nag at five, so I'm going out after tea. 
Will you be in to tea?" 

"Don't know." 

As I tightened my puttees preparatory to 
mounting the great Jim, Edwards started his 
gramophone; so leaving them to the strains of 
Tannhaiiser, I bestrode my charger and steered 
him gracefully down the garden path, under the 
brick archway, and out into the street. 

Myself on a horse always amused me, espe- 
cially when it was called an "officer's charger." 
Jim was not fiery, yet he was not by any means 
sluggish, and he went fast at a gallop. He 
suited me very well indeed when I wanted to go 
for an afternoon's ride ; for he was quite content 
to walk when I wanted to muse, and to gallop 
hard when I wanted exhilaration. I hate a horse 
that will always be trotting. I know it is best 
style to trot; but my rides were not for style, 
but for pleasure, exercise, and solitude. And 
Jim fell in admirably with my requirements. 
But, as I say, the idea that I was a company- 
commander on his charger always amused me. 

I rode, as I generally did, in a south-easterly 
direction, climbing at a walk one of the many 



256 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

roads that led out of Morlancourt towards the 
Bois des Tallies. When I reached the high 
ground I made Jim gallop along the grass- 
border right up to the edge of the woods. There 
is nothing like the exhilaration of fljdng along, 
you cannot imagine how, with the great brown 
animal lengthening out under you for all he is 
worth ! I pulled him up and turned his head to 
the right, leaving the road and skirting the edge 
of the wood. At last I was alone. 

In the clearings of the wood the ground was a 
sheet of blue hyacinths, whose sweet scent came 
along on the breeze; their fragrance lifted my 
spirit, and I drank in deep breaths of the early 
summer air. I took off my cap to feel the sun 
full on my face. On the ground outside the 
wood were still a few late primroses interspersed 
with cowslips, stubborn and jolly; and as I 
rounded a bend in the wood-edge, I found myself 
looking across a tiny valley, the opposite face of 
which was a wooded slope, with all the trees 
banked up on it as gardeners bank geraniums 
in tiers to give a good massed effect. So, climb- 
ing the hillside, were all these shimmering 
patches of greeu, yellow-green, pea-green, yel- 
low, massed together in delightful variety; and 
dotted about in the middle of them were solitary 
patches of white cherry-blossom, like white foam 
breaMng over a reef, in the midst of a great 
green sea. And across this perfect softness 



BILLETS 257 

from time io time the bold black and white of 
magpies cut with that vivid contrast with which 
Nature loves to baffle the poor artist. 

''Come on, old boy," I said, as I reached the 
bottom of this little valley ; and trotting up the 
other side, and through a ride in the wood, I 
came out on the edge of the Valley of the Somme. 
I then skirted the south side of the wood until I 
reached a secluded corner with a view across the 
valley: here I dismounted, fastened Jim to a 
tree, loosened his girths, and left him pulling 
greedily at the grass at his feet. Then I threw 
myself down on the grass to dream. 

My thoughts ran back to my conversation with 
Edwards. Perhaps it was best not to think too 
hard, but I could no more stifle my thoughts than 
can a man his appetite. Responsibility. Re- 
sponsibility. And those with the greatest re- 
sponsibility endure and see the least ; no one has 
oaore to endure than the the private soldier in the 
infantry, and no one has less responsibility or 
power of choice. I thought of our last six days 
in the trenches. When "A" Company were in 
the line, the first three days, we had been bom- 
barded heavily at "stand- to" in the evening. 
Jn Maple Redoubt it had been bad enough. 
There was one sentry-post a little way up Old 
Kent Road ; by some mistake a bomber had been 
put on duty there, whereas it was a bayonet- 
man's post, the bombers having a special role 



258 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

in case of the enemy attacking. I found this 
mistake had been made, but did not think it was 
worth altering. And that man was killed out- 
right by a shell. 

In the front line "A" Company had had sev- 
eral killed and wounded, and I had had to lend 
them half my bombers ; as I had placed two men 
on one post, a canister had burst quite a long 
way off, but the men cowered down into the 
trench. I cursed them as hard as I could, and 
then I saw that in the post were the two former 
occupants lying dead, killed half an hour ago 
where they lay, and where I was placing my two 
men. I stopped my curses, and inwardly directed 
them against myself. And there I had to leave 
these fellows, looking after me and thinking, 
*'He's going back to his dug-out. ' ' Ah ! no, they 
knew me better than to think like that. Yet I 
had to go back, leaving them there. I should 
never forget that awful weight of responsibility 
that suddenly seemed visualized before me. 
Could I not see their scared faces peering at me, 
even as now I seemed to smell the scent of pear- 
drops with which the trench was permeated, the 
Germans having sent over a few lachrymatory 
shells along with the others that night? 

Ah! Why was I living all this over again, 
just when I had come away to get free of it all 
awhile, and dream? I had come out to enjoy 
the sunshine and the peace, just as Jim was 



BILLETS 259 

enjoying the grass behind me. I listened. There 
was a slight jingle of the bit now and again, and 
a creaking of leather, and always that drawing 
sound, with an occasional pnrr, as the grass was 
torn up. I could not help looking round at last. 
''You pig," I said; but my tone did not alto- 
gether disapprove of complacent piggishness. 

In front of me lay the blue water of the 
Somme Canal, and the pools between it and the 
river ; long parallel rows of pale green poplars 
stretched along either bank of the canal; and 
at my feet, half hidden by the slope of the 
ground, lay the sleepy little village of Etinehem. 
There was a Sunday afternoon slumber over 
everything. Was it Sunday? I thought for a 
moment. No, it was Thursday, and to-morrow 
we went ''in" again. I deliberately switched 
my thoughts away from the trenches, and they 
flew to the events of the morning. I could see 
my fellows lying, so keen — I might almost say 
so happy — blazing away on the range. One I 
remembered especially. Private Benjamin, a 
boy with a delicate eager face, who came out 
with the last draft : he came from a village close 
up to Snowdon ; he was shooting badly, and very 
concerned about it. I lay down beside him and 
showed him how to squeeze the trigger, gradu- 
ally, ever so gradually. Oh! these boys! Ee- 
sponsibility. Eesponsibility. 

"This is no good," I said to myself at last, 



260 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

and untied Jim and rode again. I went down 
into the valley, and along the green track be- 
tween an avenue of poplars south of the canal 
until at last I came to Sailly-Laurette, and so 
back and in to Morlancourt from the south-west. 
It was six o'clock by the time I stooped my head 
under the gateway into our garden, and for the 
last hour or so I had almost forgotten war at 
last. 

''Hullo," was the greeting I received from 
Owen, * ' There 's no tea left. ' ' 

''I don't want any tea," I answered. "Has 
the post come ? ' ' 

There were three letters for me. As I slept 
at a house a little distance away, I took the let- 
ters along with me. 

"I'm going over to my room to clean up," I 
shouted to Owen, who was reading inside the 
Mess-room. * ' What time 's old Jim coming in ? " 

' ' Seven o 'clock ! ' ' 

"All right," I answered. "I'll be over by 
seven." 

III. Evening 

As I walked up the garden path a few minutes 
before seven, I had to pass the kitchen door, 
where the servants slept, lived, and cooked our 
meals. 1 had a vision of Private Watson, the 
cook, busy at the ovenj he was in his shirt- 



BILLETS 261 

sleeves, hair untidy, trousers very grimy, and 
altogether a very nnmartial figure. There 
seemed to be a dispute in progress, to judge 
from the high pitch to which the voices had at- 
tained. On these occasions Lewis ' piping voice 
reached an incredible falsetto, while his face 
flushed redder than ever. 

Watson, Owen's servant, had superseded Gray 
as officer's mess cook; the latter had, unfor- 
tunately, drunk one or two glasses of beer last 
time in billets, and, to give his own version, he 
'' somehow felt very sleepy, and went down and 
lay under a bank, ' ' and could remember nothing 
more until about ten o'clock, when he humbly 
reported his return to me. Meanwhile Watson 
had cooked the dinner, which was, of course, 
very late; and as he did it very well, and as 
Gray's explanation seemed somewhat vague, we 
decided to make Watson cook, let Gray try a 
little work in the company for a change, and get 
the sergeant-major to send Owen another man 
for servant. Watson had signalized the entry 
to his new appointment by a quarrel with 
Madame (the Warwicks had managed to "bag" 
this ideal billet of ours temporarily, j^nd we 
were in a much less comfortable one the last two 
occasions out of trenches) ; eventually Madame 
had hurled the frying-pan at him, amid a torrent 
of unintelligible French; neither could under- 
stand a word the other was saying, of course. 



262 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

Gray had been wont, I believe, to "lie low and 
say nuffin," like Brer Fox, when Madame, who 
was old and half-crazed, came up and threw 
water on the fire in a fit of unknown anger. Bnt 
Watson's blood boiled at such insults from a 
Frenchwoman, and hence had followed a sharp 
contention ending in the projection of the frying- 
pan. Luckily, we were unmolested here: Wat- 
son could manage the dinner, anyway. 

I entered our mess-room, which was large, 
light, and boasted a boarded floor; it was a 
splendid summer-room, though it would have 
been very cold in winter. There I found a pile 
of literature awaiting me ; operation orders for 
to-morrow, giving the hour at which each com- 
pany was to leave Morlancourt, and which com- 
pany of the Manchesters it was to relieve, and 
when, and where, and the route to be taken; 
there were two typed documents "for your in- 
formation and retention, please," one relating to 
prevention of fly-trouble in billets, the other giv- 
ing a new code of signals and marked "Secret" 
on the top, and lastly there was Comic Cuts. 
Leaving the rest, I hastily skimmed through the 
latter, which contained detailed information of 
operations carried out, and intelligence gath- 
ered on the corps front during the last few days. 
At first these were intensely interesting, but 
after seven months they began to pall, and I 
grew expert at skimming through them rapidly. 



BILLETS 263 

Then Jim Potter came in, and Comic Cuts 
faded into insignificance. 

''Here, Owen," said I, and threw them over 
to him. 

Captain and Quartermaster Jim Potter was 
the Father of the battalion. He had been in the 
battalion sixteen years, and had come out with 
them in 1914; twice the battalion had been deci- 
mated, new officers had come and disappeared, 
commanding officers had become brigadiers and 
new ones taken their place, but ''Old Jim" re- 
mained, calm, unaltered, steady as a rock, good- 
natured, and an utter pessimist. I first intro- 
duced him in Chapter I, when I spent the night 
in his billet prior to my first advent into the 
trenches. I was a little perturbed then by his 
pessimism. Now I should have been very 
alarmed if he had suddenly burst into a fit of 
optimism. 

"Well, Jim," we said, "how are things going! 
When's the war going to end?" 

"Oh! not so very long now." We gaped at 
this unexpected reply. "Because," he added, 
"you know. Bill, it's the unexpected that always 
happens in this war. Hullo! You've got some 
pretty pictures, I see." 

We had been decorating the walls with the few 
unwarlike pictures that were still to be found 
in the illustrated papers. 

"Not a bad place, Blighty," he resumed, gaz- 



264 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

ing at a picture entitled * ' Home, Sweet Home ! ' ' 
There had been a little dispute as to whether it 
should go up, owing to its sentimental nature. 
At last "The Warwicks will like it," we had 
said, and up it had gone. The Warwicks had 
our billet, when we were " in. " 

' ' Tell us about your leave, ' ' we said, and Jim 
began a series of delightful sarcastic jerks about 
the way people in England seemed to be getting 
now a faint glimmering conception that some- 
where there was a war on. 

The joint was not quite ready, Edwards ex- 
plained to me, drawing me aside a minute ; would 
old Jim mind? The idea of old Jim minding 
being quite absurd, we decided on having a 
cooked joint a quarter of an hour hence, rather 
than a semi-raw one now; and we told Jim our 
decision. It seemed to suit him exactly, as he 
had had tea late. There never was such an un- 
ruffled fellow as he; had we wanted to begin 
before the time appointed, he would have been 
ravenous. So he continued the description of 
his adventures on leave. Meanwhile I rescued 
Comic Cuts from the hands of Paul, and des- 
patched them, duly initialed, by the trusty 
Davies to ''C" Company. Just as I had done 
so the sergeant-major appeared at the door. 

* ' You know the time we move off to-morrow 1 ' ' 
I said. 

Yes, he had known that long before I did, by 



BILLETS 265 

means of the regimental sergeant-major and the 
orderly sergeant. 

''Fall in at 8.15," I said. ''Everything the 
same as usual. All the officers' servants, and 
Watson, are to fall in with the company; this 
straggling in independently, before or after the 
company, will stop once and for all." Lewis' 
face, as he laid the soup-plates, turned half a 
degree redder than usual. 

' ' There 's nothing more ? ' * I said. 

"No, that's all, sir." 

The sergeant-major drained off his whiskey 
with a dash of Perrier, and prepared to go. 
Now was the psychological moment when one 
learnt any news there was to learn about the 
battalion. 

No news, I suppose?" I asked. 

' ' 'She fellows are still talking about this ' rest, ' 
sir. No news about that, I suppose?" said the 
sergeant-major. 

"Only that it's slightly overdue," I answered, 
with a laugh. "What do you think, Jim? Any 
likelihood of this three weeks' rest coming off?" 

"Oh, yes ; I should think so," said the quarter- 
master. ' ' Any time next year. ' ' 

"Good night, sir," said Sergeant-Major 
Brown, with a grin. 

"Good night, Sergeant-Major," came in a 
chorus as he disappeared into the garden. 



266 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

''Soup's ready, sir," said Lewis. And we sat 
down to dine. 

The extraordinary thing about having Jim 
Potter in to dinner was that an extra elaborate 
menu was always provided, and yet old Jim 
himself always ate less than anyone else; still, 
he did his share nobly with the whiskey, so that 
made up for it, I suppose. To-night Edwards 
planned ' * sausages and mash" as an entree ; but, 
whether through superior knowledge or a mere 
misunderstanding, the sausages arrived seated 
carefully on the top of the round of beef, like 
marrons-glaces stuck on an iced cake. As the 
dish was placed, amid howls of execration, on 
the table, one of the unsteadier sausages stag- 
gered and fell with a splash into the gravy, 
much to everyone's delight; Edwards, wiping 
the gravy spots off his best tunic, seemed the 
only member of the party who did not greet with 
approbation this novel dish. 

After soup, sausages and beef, and rice-pud- 
ding and tinned fruit, came Watson's special 
dish — cheese au gratin on toast. This was a 
glutinous concoction, and a little went a long 
way. Then followed cafe au lait made in the 
teapot, which was the signal for cigarettes to 
be lit up, and chairs to be moved a little to 
allow of a comfortable expansion of legs. Owen 
proposed sitting out in the summer-house, but 



BILLETS 267 

on going outside reported that it was a little too 
chilly. So we remained where we were. 

Edwards was talking of Amiens : he had been 
there for the day yesterday, and incidentally 
discovered that there was a cathedral there. 

*'I know it," said I. ^'I used to go there 
every Saturday when I was at the Army 
School." 

'^You had a good time at the Army School, 
didn't you?" asked Jim. 

'^ Tip-top time," said I. "It's a really good 
show. The Commandant was the most wonder- 
ful man we ever met. By the way, that concert 
Tuesday night was a really good show. ' ' 

Jim Potter and Edwards had got it up ; it had 
been an al fresco affair, and the night had been 
ideally warm for it, Edwards had trained a 
Welsh choir with some success. Several out- 
siders had contributed, the star of the evening 
being Basil Hallam, the well-known music-hall 
artist, whose dainty manner, reminding one of 
the art of Vesta Tilley, and impeccable evening 
clothes had produced an unforgettably bizarre 
effect in the middle of such an audience and 
within sound of the guns. He was well known to 
most of the men as "the bloke that sits up in 
the sausage. ' ' For any fine day, coming out of 
trenches or going in, you could see high sus- 
pended the "sausage," whose home and "base" 
was between Treux and Mericourt, and whose 



268 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

occupant and eye was Basil Hallam. And so the 
"sausage bloke" was received enthusiastically 
at our concert. 

As we talked about the concert, Owen began 
singing "Now Florrie was a Flapper," which 
had been Basil Hallam 's most popular song, and 
as he sang he rose from his chair and walked 
about the room ; he was evidently enjoying him- 
self, though his imitation of Basil Hallam was 
very bad indeed. As he sang, we went on 
talking. 

"A good entry in Comic Cuts to-night," I re- 
marked. " ' A dog was heard barking in Fricourt 
at 11 p.m. Someone must have been hard up 
for intelligence to put that in." 

"A dog barking in Fricourt," said old Jim, 
marked. " ' A dog was heard barking in Fricourt 
What's that — Corps stuff? I never read the 
thing ; good Lord, no ! That's what it is to have 
a Staff — 'A dog barking in Fricourt!' " 

* * The Corps officer didn 't hear it, ' ' said I. * * It 
was some battalion intelligence officer that was 
such a fool as to report it. ' ' 

"Fool?" said old Jim. "I'd like to meet the 
fellow. He's the first fellow I've ever met yet 
who has a just appreciation of the brain capacity 
of the Staff. You or I might have thought of 
reporting a dog's mew, or roar, or bellow; but a 
dog's bark we should have thought of no interest 
whatever to the — er — fellows up there, you 



BILLETS 269 

know, who plan our destinies. ' ' And he gave an 
obsequious flick of his hand to an imaginary 
person too high up to see him at all. 

"He's a good fellow," he repeated, "that in- 
telligence officer. Ought to get a D.S.O." 

Old Jim had two South African medals, a 
D.C.M. and a D.S.O. 

"The Staff," he went on, with the greatest 
contempt he could put into his voice. "I saw 
three of them in a car to-day. I stood to atten- 
tion : saluted. A young fellow waved his hand, 
you know; graciously accepted my salute, you 
know, and passed on leaning back in his limou- 
sin. The 'Brains of the British Army,' I 
thought. Pah!" 

We waited. Jim on the Staff was the greatest 
entertainment the battalion could offer. We 
tried to draw him out further, but he would not 
be drawn. We tried cunningly, by indirect meth- 
ods, enquiring his views on whether there would 
be a push this year. 

" Push ! " he said. "Of course there will be a 
push. The Staff must have something to show 
for themselves. 'Shove 'em in,' they say; 
'rather a bigger front than last time.' Strategy f 
Oh, no! That's out of date, you know. Five- 
mile front — frontal attack. Get a few hundred 
thousand mown down, and then discover the 
Boche has got a second line. The Staff. Pah 1! " 
And no more would he say. 



270 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

Then Clark came in, and the Manchester 
Stokes gun officer. Clark immediately joined 
Owen in a duet on ''Florrie." Then we went 
through the whole gamut of popular songs, with 
appropriate actions and stamping of feet upon 
the floor. Meanwhile the table was cleared, only 
the whiskey and Perrier remaining. Soon there 
were cries of ' ' Napoleon — Napoleon, ' ' and 
Owen, who bears a remarkable resemblance to 
that great personage, posed tragically again and 
again amid great applause. And then, in nat- 
ural sequence, I, as "Bill, the man wot won the 
Battle of Waterloo," attacked Mm with every 
species of trench-mortar I could lay hands on, 
my head swathed in a remarkable turban of 
Daily Mail. At last I drove him into a corner be- 
hind a table, and bombarded him relentlessly 
with oranges until he capitulated ! All the time 
Edwards had been in fear and trembling for 
the safety of his gramophone. 

At length peace was signed, and we grew 
quiet again beneath the soothing strains of the 
gramophone, until at last Jim Potter said he 
must really go. Everybody reminding everyone 
else that breakfast was at seven, we broke up 
the party, and Owen, Paul, Jim Potter and I 
departed together. But anyone who knows the 
psychology of conviviality will understand that 
we had first to pay a visit to a neighbouring 



BILLETS 271 

Mess for one last whiskey-and-soda before turn- 
ing in. 

As I opened the door of my billet, I heard a 
* * strafe ' ' getting up. There was a lively cannon- 
ade up in the line ; for several minutes I listened, 
until it diminished a little, and began to die 
away. "In" to-morrow, I thought. My valise 
was laid out on the floor, and my trench kit all 
ready for packing first thing next morning. I 
lost no time in getting into bed. And yet I could 
not sleep. 

I could not help thinking of the jollity of the 
last few hours, the humor, the apparently spon- 
taneous outburst of good spirits; and most of 
all I thought of old Jim, the mainspring some- 
how of it all. And again I saw the picture of 
the concert a few nights ago, the bright lights 
of the stage, the crowds of our fellows, all their 
bodies and spirits for the moment relaxed, good- 
natured, happy, as they stood laughing in the 
warm night air. And lastly I thought again of 
Private Benjamin, that refined eager face, that 
rather delicate body, and that warm hand as I 
placed mine over his, squeezing the trigger. He 
was no more than a child really, a simple- 
minded child of Wales. Somehow it was more 
terrible that these young boys should see this 
war, than for the older men. Yet were we not 
all children wondering, wondering, wondering? 
. , , Yes, we were like children faced by a wild 



272 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

beast. ''Sometimes I dislike you almost," I 
thought; "your dulness, your coarseness, your 
lack of romance, your unattractiveness. Yet 
that is only physical. You, I love really. Oh, 
the dear, dear world ! " 

And in the darkness I buried my face in the 
pillow, and sobbed. 



CHAPTEE XV 

"A CERTAIN MAN DREW A BOW AT A 
VENTURE" 

IT was ten o 'clock as I came in from the wir- 
ing-party in front of Rue Albert, and at that 
moment our guns began. We were in Maple 
Redoubt. The moon had just set, and it was a 
still summer night in early June. 

''Come and have a look," I called to Owen, 
who had just entered the dug-out. I could see 
him standing with his back to the candlelight 
reading a letter or something. 

He came out, and together we looked across 
the valley at the shoulder of down that was sil- 
houetted by the continuous light of gun-flickers. 
Our guns had commenced a two hours ' bombard- 
ment. 

"No answer from the Boche yet," I said. 

''They're firing on C 2, down by the ceme- 
tery." 

"Yes, I hardly noticed it ; our guns make such 
a row. By Jove, it's magnificent." 

We gazed fascinated for a long time, and then 
went into the dug-out where Edwards and Paul 

273 



274 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

were snoring rhythmically. I read for half an 
hour, but the dug-out was stuffy, and the smell 
of sand-bags and the flickering of the candle 
annoyed me for some reason or other. Some- 
how "Derelicts" by W. J. Locke failed to grip 
my attention. Owing to our bombardment, there 
were no working-parties, in case the Germans 
should take it into their head to retaliate vigor- 
ously. But at present there was no sign of 
that. 

I went outside again, and walked along Park 
Lane until I came to the Lewis-gun position just 
this side of the corner of Watling Street. The 
sentry was standing up, witii his elbows on the 
ground level (there was no parapet) gazing 
alert and interested at the continuous flicker of 
our shells bursting along the enemy's trenches. 
Lance-Corporal Allan looked out of the dug-out, 
and, seeing me, came out and stood by us. And 
together we watched, all three of us, in silence. 
Overhead was the continual griding, screeching, 
whistling of the shells as they passed over, with- 
out pause or cessation; behind was a chain of 
gun-flickers the other side of the ridge; and in 
front was another chain of flashes, and a succes- 
sion of bump, bump, bumps, as the shells burst 
relentlessly in the German trenches. And where 
we stood, under the noisy arch, was a steady 
calm. 

"This is all right, sir," said Lance-Corporal 



*'A BOW AT A VENTURE" 275 

Allan. He was the N.C.O. in charge of this 
Lewis-gun team. 

"Yes," said I. "The artillery are not on 
short rations to-night." 

For always, through the last four months, the 
artillery had been more or less confined to so 
many shells a day. The officers used to tell us 
they had any amount of ammunition, yet no 
sooner were they given a free hand to retaliate 
as much as we wanted, than an order came can- 
celling this privilege. To-night at any rate there 
was no curtailment. 

*'I believe this is the beginning of a new order 
of things, ' ' I said, half musing, to myself ; ' ' that 
is, I believe the Boche is going to get lots and 
lots of this now. ' ^ 

"About time, sir," said the sentry. 

"Is there a push coming off?" said Lance- 
Corporal Allan. 

"I don't know," I replied. "But I expect we 
shall be doing something soon. It 's quite certain 
we're going to get our three weeks' rest after 
this turn in. The Brigade Major told me so." 

Corporal Allan smiled, and as he did so the 
flashes lit up his face. He was quite a boy, only 
eighteen, I believe, but an excellent N.C.O. He 
had a very beautiful though sensuous face that 
used to remind me sometimes of the "Satyr" 
of Praxiteles. His only fault was an inclination 
to sulkiness at times, which was perhaps due to 



276 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

a little streak of vanity. It was no wonder the 
maidens of Morlancourt made eyes at him, and 
a little girl who lived next door to the Lewis- 
gunner's billet was said to have lost her heart 
long ago. To-night I felt a pang as I saw him 
smile. 

* 'We'll see," I said. ** Anyway it's going to 
be a good show giving the Boche these sort of 
pleasant dreams. Better than those one-minute 
stunts." 

I was referring to a one-minute bombardment 
of Frioourt Wood, that had taken place last 
time we were in the line. It was a good spectacle 
to see the wood alive with flames, hear our 
Vickers* guns rattling hard behind us from the 
supports, and see the Germans firing excited 
green and red rockets into the air. But the re- 
taliation had been unpleasant, and the whole 
business seemed not worth while. This con- 
tinuous pounding was quite different. 

I went back and visited the other gun position, 
and spent a few minutes there also. At last I 
turned in reluctantly. I went out again at half- 
past eleven, and still the shells were screaming 
over. It seemed the token of an irresistible 
power. And there was no reply at all now from 
the German lines. 

The short summer nights made life easier 
in some respects. We ''stood to" earlier, and 



''A BOW AT A VENTUEE" 277 

it was quite light by three. As I turned in again, 
I paused for a moment to take in the scene. 
Davies had retired to a small dug-out, that 
looked exactly like a dog-kennel, and was not 
much larger. As Davies himself frequently re- 
minded me of a very intelligent sheepdog, the 
dog-kennel seemed most suitable. I heard him 
turning about inside, as I stood at the door of 
our own dug-out. 

The scene was one of the most perfect peace. 
The sun was not up, but by now the light was 
firm and strong ; night had melted away. I went 
back and walked a little way along Park Lane 
until I came to a gap in the newly erected sand- 
bag parados. I went through the gap and into 
a little graveyard that had not been used now 
for several months. And there I stood in the 
open, completely hidden from the enemy, on the 
reverse slope of the hill. Below me were the 
dug-outs of 71 North, and away to the left those 
of the Citadel. Already I could see smoke curl- 
ing up from the cookers. There was a faint mist 
still hanging about over the road there, that the 
strong light would soon dispel. On the hill-side 
opposite lay the familiar tracery of Eedoubt A, 
and the white zigzag mark of Maidstone Avenue 
climbing up well to the left of it, until it disap- 
peared over the ridge. Close to my feet the mea- 
dow was full of buttercups and blue veronica, 
with occasional daisies starring the grass. And 



278 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

below, above, everywhere, it seemed, was the 
tremulous song of countless larks, rising, grow- 
ing, swelling, till the air seemed full to breaking 
point. 

And there was not a sound of war. Who could 
desecrate such a perfect June morning? I felt 
a mad impulse to run up and across into No 
Man's Land and cry out that such a day was 
made for lovers ; that we were all enmeshed in 
a mad nightmare, that needed but a bold man's 
laugh to free us from its clutches ! Surely this 
most exquisite morning could not be the birth of 
another day of pain? Yet I felt how vain and 
hopeless was the longing, as I turned at last and 
saw the first slant rays of sunlight touch the 
white sand-bags into life. 

"What time's this working-party?" asked 
Paul at four o'clock that afternoon. 

''I told the sergeant-major to get the men out 
as soon as they'd finished tea," I replied. 
''About a quarter to five they ought to be ready. 
He will let you know all right." 

''Hullo!" said Paul. 

"What are you 'hulloing' about?" I asked. 

Paul did not answer. Faintly I heard a 
"wheeoo, wheeoo, wheeoo," that grew louder 
and louder and ended in a swishing roar like a 
big wave breaking against an esplanade — and 
then ' ' wump — wump — wump — wump ' ' four 



''A BOW AT A VENTURE" 279 

4.2 's exploded beyond the parados of Park Lane. 

"Well over," said Edwards. 

*'I expected this," I answered. ''They've 
been too d — d quiet all day — especially after the 
pounding we gave them last night. ' ' 

''There they are again," I added. This time 
I had heard the four distant thuds, and we all 
waited. 

"Wump, wump — Ceump." There was a colos- 
sal din, the two candles went out, and there was 
a shaking and jarring in the blackness. Then 
followed the sound of falling stuff, and I felt a 
few patters of earth all over me. Gradually it 
got lighter, and through the smoke-filled door- 
way the square of daylight reappeared. 

" Je ne I'aime pas," said I, as we all waited, 
without speaking. Then Edwards struck a 
match and lit the candles; all the table, floor, 
and beds were sprinkled with dust and earth. 
Then Davies burst in. 

"Are you all right?" we asked. 

' ' Yessir. Are you ? ' ' 

"Oh, we're all right, Davies," said I. "But 
there's a job for Lewis cleaning this butter up." 

At length we went outside, stepping over a 
heap of loose yielding earth, mixed up with 
lumps of chalk and bits of frayed sand-bags. 
Outside, the trench was blocked with debris of 
a similar kind. Already two men had crossed it, 
and several men were about to do so. It was 



280 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

old already. There was still a smell of gun- 
powder in the air, and a lot of chalk dust that 
irritated your nose. 

"I think I'll tell the sergeant-major not to get 
the working-party out just yet," I said to Paul. 
''They often start like that and then put lots 
more over about a quarter of an hour later." 
And I sped along Park Lane quickly. 

As I returned I heard footsteps behind me. I 
looked round, but the men were hidden by a tra- 
verse. And then came tragedy, sudden, and 
terrible. I have seen many bad sights — every 
man killed is a tragedy — but one avoids and 
hides away the hideousness as soon as possible. 
But never, save once perhaps, have I seen the 
thing so vile as now. 

''Look out!" I heard a voice from behind. 
And as I heard the shell screaming down, I 
tumbled into the nearest dug-out. The shell 
burst with a huge ' ' crump, ' ' but not so close as 
the one that had darkened our dug-out ten min- 
utes before. Then again another four shells 
burst together, but some forty or fifty yards 
away. I waited one, two minutes. And then I 
heard men running in the trench. 

As I sprang up the dug-out steps, I saw two 
stretcher-bearers standing looking round the 
traverse. And then there was the faint whis- 
tling overhead and they pushed me back as they 
almost fell down the dug-out steps. 



''A BOW AT A VENTURE" 281 

'*Is there a man hurt?" I asked. **We can't 
leave him. ' ' 

"He's dead," said one. And as he spoke 
there were three more explosions a little to the 
left. 

"Are you sure?" 

*'Aye," said the stretcher-bearer and closed 
his eyes tight. 

"He's past our help," said the other man. 

At last, after a minute's calm, we stepped out 
into the sunshine. I went round the traverse, 
following the two stretcher-bearers. And look- 
ing between them, as they stood gazing, this is 
what I saw. 

In the trench, half buried in rags of sand-bag 
and loose chalk, lay what had been a man. His 
head was nearest to me, and at that I gazed 
fascinated ; for the shell had cut it clean in half, 
and the face lay like a mask, its features un- 
marred at all, a full foot away from the rest of 
the head. The flesh was grey, that was all ; the 
open eyeSj the nose, the mouth were not even 
twisted awry. It was like the fragment of a 
sculpture. All the rest of the body was a man- 
gled mass of flesh and khaki. 

"Who is it?" whispered a stretcher-bearer, 
bending his head down to look sideways at that 
mask. 

* * Find his identity-disc, ' ' said the other. 

"It is Lance-Corporal Allan," said I. 



282 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

Then up came the regimental sergeant-major, 
and Owen followed him. They too gazed in hor- 
ror for a moment. The sergeant-major was the 
first to recover. 

' ' Hi ! you fellows, ' ' he called to two men. ' ' Get 
a waterproof sheet." 

' ' Come away, old man, ' ' said I to Owen. 

In silence we walked back to the dug-out. But 
my brain was whirling. "A certan man drew a 
bow at a venture, ' ' I thought again. That was 
how it was possible. No man could keep on 
killing, if he could see the men he killed. Who 
had fired that howitzer shell? A German gun- 
ner somewhere right away in Mametz Wood 
probably. He would never see his handiwork, 
never know what he had done to-day. He would 
never see; that was the point. Had he known, 
he would have rejoiced that there was one Eng- 
lishman less in the world. It was not his fault. 
We were just the same. What of last night's 
bombardment? (The memory of Lance-Cor- 
poral Allan up by his gun-position gave me a 
quick sharp pang.) Had we not watched with 
glittering eyes the magnificent shooting of our 
own gunners? This afternoon's strafe was but 
a puny retaliation. 

Slowly it came back to me, the half-formed 
picture that had arisen in my mind the night of 
Davidson's death. "A certain man drew a bow 



''A BOW AT A VENTUKE" 283 

at a venture," expressed it perfectly. It was 
splendid twanging the bow, feeling the fingers 
grip the polished wood, watching the bow-string 
stretch and strain, and then letting the arrow 
fly. That was the fascinating, the deadly fasci- 
nating side of war. That was what made it pos- 
sible to ''carry on." I remembered my joy in 
calling up the artillery in revenge for Thomp- 
son's death. And then again, whenever we put 
a mine up, how exhilarating was the spectacle! 
Throwing a bomb, firing a Lewis gun, all these 
things were pleasant. It was like the joy of 
throwing stone over a barn and hearing them 
splash into a pond; like driving a cricket ball 
out of the field. 

But the arrows fell somewhere. That was the 
other side of war. The dying king leant on his 
chariot, propped up until the sun went down. 
The man who had fired the bolt never knew he 
had killed a king. That was the other side of 
war ; that was the side that counted. What I had 
just seen was war. 

I leaned my face on my arm against the para- 
dos. Oh, this unutterable tragedy! Had there 
ever been such a thing before? Why was this 
thing so terrible? Why did I have this feeling 
of battering against some relentless power? 
Death. There were worse things than death. 
There were sights, such as I had just come from, 
as terrible in everyday life, in any factory ex- 



284 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

plosion or railway accident. There was nothing 
new in death. Vaguely my mind felt out for 
something to express this thing so far more 
terrible than mere death. And then I saw it. 
Vividly I saw the secret of war. 

What made war so cruel, was the force that 
compelled you to go on. After a factory explo- 
sion you cleared up things and then took every 
precaution to prevent its recurrence ; but in war 
you did the opposite, you used all your energies 
to make more explosions. You killed and went 
on killing ; you saw men die around you, and you 
deliberately went on with the thing that would 
cause more of your friends to die. You were 
placed in an arena, and made to fight the beasts ; 
and if you killed one beast, there were more wait- 
ing, and more and more. And above the arena, 
out of it, secure, looked down the glittering eyes 
of the men who had placed you there ; cruel, re- 
lentless eyes, that went on glittering while the 
mouths expressed admiration for your impos- 
sible struggles, and pity for your fate ! 

"Oh God! I shall go mad!" I thought, in 
the agony of my mind. I saw into that strange 
empty chamber which is called madness : I knew 
what it would be like to go mad. And even as I 
saw, came the thought again of those glittering 
eyes, and the ruthless answer to my soul's cry: 
' ' The war is utterly indifferent whether you go 
mad or not. ' ' 



''A BOW AT A VENTURE" 285 

Owen was standing waiting for me. I grew 
calm again, and turned and put my hand on his 
shoulder. Together we reached the door of the 
dug-out. 

*'0h, Bill," he said, ''have you ever seen any- 
thing more awful?" 

* ' Only once. No, not more awful : more beastly. 
Nothing could be more awful. ' ' 

We told the others. 

* ' Not Allan ? ' ' said Edwards. He was Lewis- 
gun officer, and Allan was his best man. 

''Not Allan?" he repeated. "Oh, how will 
they tell his little girl in Morlancourt? What 
will she say when she learns she will never see 
him again?" 

"Thank God she never saw him as we saw 
him just now," I said, "and thank God his 
mother never saw him. ' ' 

"If women were in this war, there would be 
no war, ' ' said Edwards. 

"I wonder," said I. 



CHAPTER XVI 
WOUNDED 

1ANCE - CORPORAL ALLAN was killed 
. on Tuesday the 6th of June. For the rest 
of that day I was all "on edge." I won- 
dered sometimes how I could go on : even in bil- 
lets I dreamed of rifle-grenades; and though I 
had only returned from leave a fortnight ago, I 
felt as tired out in body and mind as I did before 
I went. And this last horror did not add to my 
peace of mind. I very nearly quarrelled with 
Captain Wetherell, the battalion Lewis-gun 
officer, over the position of a Lewis gun. There 
had been a change of company front, and some 
readjustments had to be made. I believe I told 
him he had not got the remotest idea of our 
defence scheme, or something of the sort! My 
nerves were all jangled, and my brain would not 
rest a second. We were nearly all like that at 
times. 

I decided therefore to go out again to-night 
with our wires. I had been out last night, and 
Owen was going to-night, but I wanted to be 
doing something to occupy my thoughts. I knew 
I should not sleep. At a quarter to ten I sent 
286 



WOUNDED 287 

word to Corporal Dyson, the wiring-corporal, to 
take his men up at eleven instead of ten, as 
the moon had not quite set. At eleven o'clock 
Owen and I were out in No Man's Land putting 
out concertina wire between 80a and 81a bomb- 
ing posts, which had recently been connected up 
by a deep narrow trench. There was what might 
be called a concertina craze on: innumerable 
coils of barbed wire were converted into con- 
certinas by the simple process of winding them 
round and round seven upright stakes in the 
ground ; every new lap of wire was fastened to 
the one below it at every other stake by a twist 
of plain wire ; the result, when you came to the 
end of a coil and lifted the whole up off the 
stakes was a heavy ring of barbed wire that con- 
certina 'd out into ten-yard lengths. They were 
easily made up in the trench, quickly put up, 
and when put out in two parallel rows, about a 
yard apart, and joined together with plenty of 
barbed wire tangled in loosely, were as good an 
obstacle as could be made. We had some thirty 
of these to put out to-night. 

When you are out wiring you forget all about 
being in No Man's Land, unless the Germans are 
sniping across. The work is one that absorbs 
all your interest, and your one concern is to get 
the job done quickly and well. I really cannot 
remember whether the enemy had been snip- 
ing or not (I use the word "sniping" to denote 



288 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

firing occasional shots across with fixed rifles 
sited by day). I remember that I forgot all 
about Captain Wether ell and his Lewis-gun 
positions, as soon as I was outside the bombing 
post at 80a. There were about fifteen yards be- 
tween this post and the crater-edge, where I had 
a couple of "A" Company bombers out as a 
covering party. But in this fifteen yards were 
several huge shell-holes, and we were concealing 
the wire in these as much as possible. It was 
fascinating work, and I felt we could not get 
on fast enough with it. After a time I went 
along to Owen, whose party was working on my 
left. Here Corporal Dyson and four men were 
doing well also. All this strip of land between 
the trench and the crater edge was an extraor- 
dinary tangle of shell-holes, old beams and 
planks, and scraps of old wire. Every square 
yard of it had been churned and pounded to bits 
at different times by canisters and "sausages" 
and such-like. Months ago there had been a 
trench along the crater edges ; but new mines had 
altered these, and until we had dug the deep, 
narrow trench between 80a and 81a about a fort- 
night ago, there had been no trench there for at 
least five months. The result was a chaotic 
jumble, and this jumble we were converting into 
an obstacle by judiciously placed concertina 
wiring. 
I repeat that I cannot remember if there had 



WOUNDED 289 

been much sniping across. I had just looked at 
my luminous watch, which reported ten past 
one, when I noticed that the sky in the east began 
to show up a little paler than the German para- 
pet across, the crater. ' ' Dawn, ' ' I thought, ' ' al- 
ready. There is no night at all, really. We 
must knock off in a quarter of an hour. The 
light will not be behind us, but half -past one will 
be time to stop. ' ' I was lying out by the bomb- 
ers, gazing into the black of the crater. It was 
a warm night, and jolly lying out like this, 
though a bit damp and muddy round the shell- 
holes. Then I got up, told Corporal Evans to 
come in after fixing the coil he was putting up, 
and was walking toward 80a post, when 
''Bang" I heard from across the crater, and I 
felt a big sting in my left elbow and a jar 
that numbed my whole arm. 

' ' Ow, ' ' I cried out involuntarily, and doubled 
the remaining few yards, and scrambled down 
into the trench. 

Corporal Dyson was there. 

''Are you hit, sir?" 

"Yes. Nothing much — ^here in the arm. Get 
the wirers in. It'll be light soon." 

Then somehow I found my equipment and 
tunic off; there seemed a lot of men round me; 
and I tried to realize that I was really hit. My 
arm hung numb and stiff, with the after-taste of 
a sting in it. I felt this could not be a proper 



290 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

wound, as there wa^ no real throbbing pain such 
as I expected. I was surprised when I saw a 
lot of blood in the half hght. Corporal Dyson 
asked me if I had a field- dressing, and I said 
he would find one in the bottom right-hand cor- 
ner of my tunic. To my annoyance he did not 
seem to hear, and used one of the men's. Then 
Owen appeared, with a serious peering face. 

"Are all the wirers in?" I asked. 

"Yes," he answered. "How are you feel- 
ing?" 

His serious tone amused me. I wanted to say, 
"Good heavens, man, I'm as fit as anything. 
I shall be back to-morrow, I expect. ' ' But I felt 
very tired and rather out of breath as I an- 
swered * ' Oh ! all right. ' ' 

By this time my arm was bandaged and I 
started walking back to Maple Redoubt, leaning 
on Corporal Dyson. I wanted to joke, but felt 
too tired. It seemed an interminable way downj 
especially along Watling Street. 

I had only once looked into the dressing-sta- 
tion, although I must have passed it several hun- 
dred times. I was surprised at its size: there 
were two compartments. As I stepped down 
inside, I wondered if it were shell-proof. In the 
inner chamber I could hear the doctor's quick 
low voice, telling a man to move the lamp : and 
it seemed to flash across me for the first time 
that there ought to be some kind of guarantee 



WOUNDED 291 

against dressing-stations being blown in like any- 
ordinary dug-out. And yet I knew there was no 
possibility of any such, guarantee. 

*' Hullo, Bill, old man," said the little doctor, 
coming out quickly. "Where's this thing of 
yours? In the arm, isn't it? Let's have a look. 
Oh yes, I see. (He examined the bandage, and 
the arm above it.) Well, I won't be long. You 
won't mind waiting a few minutes, will you? 
I've got a bad case in here. Hall, get him to sit 
down, and give him some Bovril." 

And he was gone. No man could move or 
make men move quicker than the doctor. 

I felt apologetic : I had chosen a bad time to 
come, just when the doctor was busy with this 
other man. I asked who the fellow was, and 
learned he Was a private from "D" Company. 
I was very grateful for the Bovril. A good idea, 
this, I thought, having Bovril ready for you. 

I waited about ten minutes, sitting on a chair. 
I listened to the movements and low voices in- 
side. ' ' Turn him over. Here. No, those longer 
ones. Good heavens, didn't I tell you to get this 
changed yesterday? Now. That'll do," and so 
on. I turned my head round in silence, observ- 
ing acutely every detail in this antechamber, as 
one does in a dentist's waiting-room. All the 
time in my arm I felt this numb wasp-sting ; I 
wondered when the real pain would start ; there 
was no motion in this still smart. 



292 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

"Now then, Bill," said the doctor. "So sorry 
to keep you. Let's have a look at it. Oh, that's 
nothing very bad. ' ' 

It smarted as he undid the bandage. I don't 
know what he did. I never looked at it. 

"What sort of a one is it?" I asked. 

"I could just do with one like this myself," 
said the doctor. 

"Is it a Blighty one?" 

"I'd give you a fiver for it any minute," an- 
swered the doctor. "I'm not certain whether the 
bone's broken or not, but I rather think it is 
touched. I can't say, though. A bullet, did you 
say ? Are you sure ? ' ' 

"Very sure," I laughed. 

"Well, it must be one of these explosive bul- 
lets, an ordinary bullet doesn't make a wound 
like yours. That's it. That'll do." 

"I can't make out why there's not more 
pain," said I. 

"Oh, that'll come later. You see the shock 
paralyzes you at first. Here, take one of these. ' ' 
And he gave me a morphia tabloid. 

"Oheero, Bill," he said, and I went out of 
the dug-out leaning on a stretcher-bearer. 
Eound my neck hung a label, the first of a long 
series. "Gun-shot wound in left forearm," it 
contained. I found later, " ? fracture. 1.15a.m., 
7.6.16." 

Outside Lewis was waiting with my trench kit. 



WOUNDED 293 

He had appeared a quarter of an hour back at 
the door of the dressing-station, and had been 
told by the doctor so rapidly and forcibly that 
he ought to know that he would go with me to 
the clearing station, and that he had five minutes 
in which to get my kit together, that he had 
fairly sprinted away. Poor fellow! How 
should he know, seeing that he had been my 
servant over six months, and I had never got 
wounded before? But the doctor always made 
men double. 

As I passed our dug-out, Edwards, Owen, 
Paul, and Nicolson were all standing outside. 

*'Cheero," I shouted. "Good luck. The doc- 
tor says it's nothing much. I'll be back soon." 

*'What about that Lewis-gun position?" 
asked Edwards. 

*'0h," I said, *'I want to keep that position 
on the left." Then I felt my decision waver. 
''Still, if Wetherell wants the other ... I don't 
know. ' ' 

''All right. I'll fix up with Wetherell. Good 
luck. Hope you get to Blighty. ' ' 

I wanted to say such a lot. I wanted to say 
that I was sure to be back in a week or so. I 
wanted to think hard, and decide about that 
Lewis gun. I wanted to send a message to 
Wetherell apologizing for what I had said. . . . 
I wanted to talk to Sergeant Andrews, who was 



294 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

standing there too. But the stretcher-bearer 
was walking on, and I must go as he pleased. 

"Good-bye, Sergeant Andrews," I shouted. 

Last of all I saw Davies, standing solemn and 
dumb. 

' ' Good-bye, Davies. Off to Blighty. ' ' 

1 could not see if he answered. The relentless 
stretcher-bearer led me on. Was I O.C. 
stretcher-bearers or was I not! Why didn't I 
stop him? I had not decided about that Lewis 
gun. At the corner of Old Kent Road, I was told 
I might as well sit on the ration trolley and go 
down on that. And in the full light of dawn, 
about half -past two, I was rolled serenely down 
the hill to the Citadel. 

"Don't let go," I said to the stretcher-bearer, 
who was holding the trolley back. I still thought 
of sending up a message about that Lewis-gun 
position. Why could not I make up my mindf 
I looked back and saw Maple Redoubt receding 
further and further in the distance. 

' ' By Jove, ' ' I thought, ^ ' I may not see it again 
for weeks." And suddenly I realized that 
> whether I made up my mind about the Lewis- 
gun position or not, would not make the slightest 
difference ! 
f "Where do I go to now?" said I. 

"There's an ambulance at the Citadel," said 
the stretcher-bearer. "You're quite right. 
You'll be in Heilly in a little over an hour." 



WOUNDED 295 

Heilly? Why, this would be interesting, I 
thought. And I should just go, and have no- 
thing to decide. I should be passive. I was 
going right out of the arena ! 

And the events of yesterday s'eemed a dream 
already. 

Wednesday 

I lay in bed, at the clearing station at Heilly. 
It was just after nine o'clock the same morning, 
and the orderlies were out of sight, but not out 
of hearing, washing up the breakfast things. 
Half the dark blue blinds were drawn, as the 
June sun was blazing outside. I could see the 
glare of it on the cobbles in the courtyard, as 
the door opened and a cool, tall nurse entered. 
I closed my eyes, and pretended to be asleep. I 
felt she might come and talk, and one thing I did 
not want to do, I did not want to talk. 

My body was most extraordinarily comfort- 
able. I moved my feet toes-up for the sheer joy 
of feeling the smooth sheets fall cool on my feet 
when I turned them sideways again. The pil- 
low was comfortable; the whole bed was com- 
fortable ; even my arm, that was throbbing vio- 
lently now, and felt boiling hot, was very com- 
fortably rested on another pillow. I just wanted 
to lie, and lie: only my mind was working so 
fast and hard that it seemed to make the skin 



296 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

tight over my forehead. And all the time there 
was that buzz, buzzing. If I left off thinking, 
the buzzing took complete mastery of my brain. 
That was intolerable : so I had to keep on think- 
ing. 

At the Citadel an R.A.M.C. doctor had given 
me tea and a second label. He had also given me 
an injection against tetanus. This he did in the 
chest. Why didn't he do it in my right arm, I 
had thought: I would have rather had it there. 
Again, I had had to wait quite a quarter of an 
hour, while he attended to the *'D" Company 
private. I had learned from an orderly that this 
poor fellow was bound to lose a leg, and again 
I had felt that I was in the way here, that I was 
a bother. I had then watched the poor fellow 
carried out on a stretcher, and the stretcher slid 
into the ambulance. There was a seat inside, 
into which I was helped. Lewis had gone in 
front, very red-faced and awkward. And an 
R.A.M.C. orderly had g-ot in behind with me. 
Sitting, I had felt that he must think I was 
shamming ! Then I remembered the first ambu- 
lance I had seen, when I first walked from Choc- 
ques to Bethune in early October! Was there 
really any connection between me then and me 
now? 

Then there had been a rather pleasant journey 
through unknown country, it seemed. After a 
few miles, we halted and changed into another 



WOUNDED 297 

ambulance. As I had stood in the sunshine, a mo- 
ment, I had tried to make out where we were. 
But I could not recognize anything, and felt very- 
tired. There was a white chalk road, a grass 
bank, and a house close by: that is all I could 
remember. And then there was another long 
ride, in which my one paramount idea was to 
rest my arm (which was in a white sling) and 
prevent it shaking and jarring. 

Then at last we had reached a village and 
pulled up in a big sunlit courtyard. Again as I 
walked into a big room I felt that people must 
think I was shamming. A matron had come in, 
and a doctor. Did I mind sitting and waiting a 
minute or so? Would I like some tea? I had 
refused tea. Then the doctor and an orderly 
came in, and the doctor asked some questions 
and took off my label. The orderly was taking 
off my boots, and the doctor had started help- 
ing! I had apologized profusely, for they were 
trench boots thick with mud. And then the doc- 
tor had asked me whether I could wait until 
about eleven before they looked at my arm: 
meanwhile it would be better, as I should be 
more rested after a few hours in bed. Bed! I 
had never thought of going to bed for an arm 
at all ! What a delicious idea ! I felt so tired, 
too. I had not been to bed all night. Then I 
had been helped into this delightful bed, and 
after scrawling a letter home to go away by the 



298 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

eight o'clock post (I was glad I had remembered 
that) , I had been left in peace at about half -past 
four. And here I was ! I had had a cup of tea 
for breakfast, but did not want to eat anything. 

I wished I could go to sleep. Yet it was not 
much good now, if they were going to look at 
my arm at eleven. I opened my eyes whenever 
I was sure there was no one near me. Then I 
thought I might as well keep them open, other- 
wise they would think I had slept, and not know 
how tired out I felt. There was a man in the 
next bed with his head all bandaged ; and round 
the bed in the corner was a screen. Opposite 
was an R.A.M.C. doctor, as far as I could 
gather ; he was talking to the nurse, and looked 
perfectly well. I thought perhaps he might be 
the sort who would talk late when I wanted to 
sleep — ^he looked so well and lively; suppose he 
had a gramophone and wanted to play it this 
afternoon. I should really have to complain, if 
he did. Yet perhaps they would understand, and 
make him give it up because of us who were not 
so well. On my right, up at the other end of the 
room (was it a ''ward"? yes, I suppose it was) 
were several voices, but I could not turn over 
and look at their owners, with my arm like this. 
How it throbbed and pulsed ! Or was it aching? 
Supposing I got pins and needles in it. . . . 

A khaki-clad padre came in. He just came 
over and asked me if I wanted anything, and did 



WOUNDED V 299 

not worry me with talking. He had a very quiet 
voice and bald head. I liked both. I felt I ought 
to have wanted something: had I been dis- 
courteous ? 

The door opened, and the doctor entered, with 
another nurse and another doctor. Somehow 
this last person electrified everyone and every- 
thing. Who was he ? His very walk was some- 
how different from the ordinary. My attention 
was riveted on him ; somehow I felt that he knew 
I was there, and yet he did not look at me. They 
wheeled a little table up from the other end of 
the room, laden with glasses and bottles and 
glittering little silver forks and things. I could 
not see clearly. An orderly was reprimanded by 
the nurse for something, in a subdued voice. 
There was a hush and a tenseness in this man's 
presence. Yet he was calmly looking at a. news- 
paper, and sitting on an empty bed as he did so ! 
Apparently Kitchener was reported drowned in 
the North Sea : he spoke in a rich, almost drawl- 
ing voice. He was immensely casual ! And yet 
one did not mind. He walked over and washed 
his hands, and put on some yellowy-brown india- 
rubber gloves that scrooped and squelched in the 
basins. And then he turned round, and the other 
doctor (whom I had seen at four o 'clock and who 
already seemed a sort of confidential friend of 
mine in the presence of this master-man) asked 
him, which case he wanted to see first. And as 



300 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

he jerked his hand casually to one of the beds, I 
was filled with a strange elation. This was a 
surgeon, I felt ; and one in whom I had immense 
confidence. He would do the best for my arm: 
he would make no mistakes. I almost laughed 
for sheer joy! 

He came at last to my bed and glanced at me. 
He never smiled. He asked me one or two ques- 
tions. I said I was ' '■ ?fracture, ' ' that my arm 
was throbbing but felt numb more than any- 
thing. 

"I suppose we may presume there is a frac- 
ture, ' ' said he ; ' * at any rate there is no point in 
looking at it here. I'll look at it under an anaes- 
thetic," he said to me, not unkindly, but still 
without a smile. And a little later, as he went 
out, he half Looked back at my bed. 

''Eleven o'clock," he said to the nurse as he 
went out. 

The tension relaxed. An orderly spoke in a 
bold ordinary voice. The spell was gone out 
with the man. 

' ' Who is that I " I asked the nurse. 

''Oh! that's Mr. Bevan; he's a very good 
surgeon indeed." 

' ' I know, ' ' said I, " I can feel that. ' * 

About an hour later, two orderlies whom I had 
not seen before came in with a stretcher, and 
laid it on the floor by the bed. The tall nurse 
asked me if I had any false teeth, and said I had 



WOUNDED 301 

better put socks on, as my feet might get cold. 
The orderly did this, and then they helped me on 
to the stretcher. My head went back, and I felt 
a strain on my neck. The next second my head 
was lifted and a pillow put under it. And they 
had moved me without altering the position of 
my arm. I was surprised and pleased at that. 
Then a blanket was put over me, and one of the 
orderlies said ''Ready?" 

*'Yes," I said, but suddenly realized he was 
talking to the other orderly. I was lifted up, and 
carried across the room out into the courtyard. 
What a blazing sun ! I closed my eyes. 

"Dump, dump, dump." The stretcher seemed 
to bob along, with a regular rhythmic swaying. 
Then they turned a corner, and I felt a slight 
nausea. I opened my eyes. The stretcher was 
put on a table. I felt very high up. 

The matron-person appeared. She was older 
than the nurses, and had a chain with scissors 
dangling on the end of it. She smiled, and asked 
what kind of a wound it was. Then the orderlies 
looked at each other, at some signal that I could 
not see, and lifted me up and into the next room. 
They held the stretcher up level with the operat- 
ing table, and helped me on to it. I did some 
good right elbow-work and got on easily. As I 
did so, I saw Mr. Bevan sitting on a chair in his 
white overall, his gloved hands quietly folded in 
his lap. He said and did nothing. Again I felt 



302 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

immensely impressed by his competence, reserv- 
ing every ounce of energy, waiting, until these 
less masterful beings had got everything ready. 

They took off the blanket, and moved things 
behind. Then they put the rubber cup over my 
mouth and nose. 

''Just breathe quite naturally," said the doc- 
tor. I shut my eyes. 

' ' Just ordinary breaths. That is very good, ' ' 
said the voice, quietly and reassuringly. 

I felt a sort of sweet shudder all down my 
body. I wanted to laugh. Then I let my body go 
a little. It was no good bracing myself. ... I 
opened my right hand and shut it, just to show 
themi was not "off" yet . . . 

The process of "coming to" was unpleasant 
and uninteresting. I do not think I distinguished 
myself by any originality, so will not attempt to 
describe it. That was a long interminable day, 
and my arm hurt a good deal. In the afternoon 
I was told that I should be pleased to hear that 
there was no bone broken. I was anything but 
pleased. I wanted the bone to be broken, as I 
wanted to go to Blighty. This worried me all 
day. I wondered if I should get to England or 
not. Then in the evening the sister (I found that 
the nurses should be called sisters) dressed the 
wound. That was distinctly unpleasant. It 
took hours and hours and hours before it began 



WOUNDED 30S 

to gdt even twilight. I have never known so 
long a day. And then I could not sleep. They 
injected morphia at last, but I awoke after three 
or four hours feeling more tired than ever. 

Thuksday 

I can hardly disentangle these days ; night and 
day ran into one another. I can remember little 
about Thursday. I could not sleep however 
much I wanted to ; and all the time my brain was 
working so hard, thinking. I worried about the 
company : they must be in the line now. Would 
Edwards remember this, and that? Had I left 
him the map, or was it among those maps in my 
valise which Lewis had gone to Morlancourt to 
fetch? 

And all the time there were rifle-grenades 
about; I daren't let the buzzing come, because 
it was all rifle-grenades really ; and always I kept 
seeing Lance-Corporal Allan lying there. Why 
could I not get rid of the picture of him? Yet 
I was afraid I might forget ; and it was impor- 
tant that I should remember. . . . 

I remember the waiting to have my arm 
dressed. It was like waiting before the dentist 
takes up the drill again. I watched the man 
next to me out of the corner of my eye, and felt 
it intensely if he seemed to wince, or drew in his 
breath. And I remember in the morning Mr. 



304 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

Bevan dressed my wound. I looked the other 
way. For a week I thought the wound was above 
instead of just below the elbow. ''This will 
hurt, ' ' he said once. 

Some time in the day the man behind the 
screen died. I had heard him groaning all day ; 
and there was the rhythmic sound of pumping — 
oxygen, I suppose. ... I heard a lot of moving 
behind the screen, and at last it was taken away 
and I saw the corner for the first time and in it 
an empty bed with clean sheets. 

The man next to me, with the bandaged head, 
kept talking deliriously to the orderly about his 
being on a submarine. Once the orderly smiled 
at me as he answered the absurd questions. 

There was one good incident I remember. 
After the surgeon had dressed my arm, I said, 
''Is there any chance of this getting me to 
Blighty?" And I thought he did not hear; he 
was looking the other way. But suddenly I 
heard that calm deliberate voice : 

' ' Yes, that is a Blighty one. There is enough 
damage to those muscles to keep you in Blighty 
several months." And this made all the rest 
bearable somehow. 

Friday 

Again the only sleep I could get was by mor- 
phia. In the morning they told me I should go 



WOUNDED 305 

by a hospital train leaving at three o'clock. I 
scrawled a note or two and gave them to Lewis, 
and instructed him about my kit. I believe they 
made an inventory of it. I gave him some maps 
for Edwards. And then he said good-bye. And 
I thought of him going back, and I going to Eng- 
land. And I felt ashamed of myself again. I 
wondered if the Colonel was annoyed with me. 

They gave me gas in the morning. It seemed 
such a bother going through all that again: it 
was not worth trying to get better. Still I was 
glad, it was one dressing less ! Then in the after- 
noon I was carried on a stretcher to the train. 
I hardly saw anyone to say good-bye to. I 
thought of writing later. 

It seemed an interminable journey. By some 
mistake I had been put in with the Tommies. 
There was no difference in the structure or com- 
fort of the officers' or Tommies' quarters; but 
I knew they were taking me wrong. However, 
I was entirely passive, and did not mind what 
they did. The carriage had a corridor all the 
way down the centre, and on each side was a suc- 
cession of berths in three tiers. On the top tier 
you must have felt very high and close up to the 
roof ; on the centre one you got a good view out 
of the windows; on the third and lowest tier 
(which was my lot) you felt that if there were an 
accident, you would not have far to roll ; on the 



306 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

other hand, you were out of view of orderlies 
passing along the corridor. 

A great thirst consumed me as I lay waiting. 
I could see two orderlies in the space by the door 
cutting up large pieces of bread and butter. 
This made my mouth still drier. Then they 
brought in cans of hot tea, and gave it out in 
white enamel bowls. I longed for the sting of 
the tea on my dry palate, but the orderly was 
startled when I said, "I suppose this is all right; 
I am an officer." He said he would tell them, 
and gave the bowl to the next man. The bowls 
were taken away and washed up, before a cup 
of tea was at last brought me. A corporal 
brought it; he poured it out of a little teapot; 
but I could not drink it out of a cup. My left 
arm lay like a log beside me, and I could not 
hold my right arm steady and raise my head. 
So the corporal went off for a feeding cup. I felt 
rather nervy and like a man with a grievance! 
And when I got the tea it was nearly cold. 

I say it seemed an interminable journey, and 
my arm was so frightfully uncomfortable. I had 
it across my body, and felt I could not breathe 
for the weight of it. At last I felt I must get its 
position altered. I called "orderly" every time 
an orderly went past: sometimes they paused 
and looked round; but they could not see me, 
and went on. Sometimes they did not hear any- 
thing. I felt as self-conscious and irritated as a 



WOUNDED 307 

man who calls ''waiter" and the waiter does not 
hear. At last one heard, and a sister came and 
fixed me up with a small pillow under the elbow. 
I immediately felt apologetic, and I wondered if 
she thought me fussy. 

The train made a long, slow grind over the 
rails ; and it kept stopping with a griding sound 
and a jolt. Why did it go so slowly? At ten 
o'clock I begged and obtained another morphia 
dose, and got four hours' sleep from it again. 

Satueday 

I suppose it was about 7 A. M. when we ar- 
rived at Eitretat. I was taken and laid in the 
middle of rows and rows of Tommies in a big 
sunny courtyard. I thought how well the bearers 
carried the stretchers : I did not at all feel that 
I was likely to be dropped or tilted off on to my 
arm. There were a lot of men in blue hospital 
dress on the steps of a big house. I wondered 
where I was : in Havre probably. It was a queer 
sensation lying on my back gazing up at the sun ; 
we were tightly packed in together, like cards 
laid in order, face upwards. How high everyone 
looked standing up. Then they discovered one 
or two officers, and I said that I too was an 
officer. I felt that they rather dared me to re- 
peat this statement. Then a man looked at my 



308 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

label, and said: ''Yes, he is an ofl&cer." And 
I was taken up and carried off. 

I found myself put to bed in a spacious room 
in which were only two beds. The house had 
only recently been finished, and was in use as a 
hospital. As soon as I was in bed, I felt a great 
relief again. No more motion for a time, I 
thought. There iwas a man in the other bed, 
threatened with consumption. We were talking, 
when a pretty V.A.D. nurse came in and asked 
what we wanted for breakfast. I felt quite hun- 
gry, and enjoyed tea and fish. I began to think 
that life was going to be good. I saw Cecil Todd, 
who had been slightly wounded a fortnight ago. 
I condoled with him on not getting to England. 
He asked me if I wanted to read. No, I did not 
feel like reading. I wrote a letter. Then two 
V.A.D. nurses came and dressed my wound. 
They seemed surprised to find so big a one, and 
sent for the doctor to see it. They dressed it 
very well, and gave me no unnecessary pain. 

In the afternoon, I was again moved to a 
motor ambulance, which took me to Havre. It 
jolted and shook horribly. ''This man does not 
know what it is like up here,*' I thought. All 
the time I was straining my body to keep the 
left arm from touching the jolting stretcher. 
(The stretchers slide in the ambulance.) I was 
a top-berth passenger; I could touch the white 



WOUNDED 309 

roof with my right hand ; and there was a stuffy- 
smell of white paint. 

At last it stopped, and after a wait I was car- 
ried amid a sea of heads, along a quay. I could 
smell sea and the stale oily smell of a steamer. 
Then I was taken over the gangway with that 
firm, steady, nodding motion with which I was 
getting so familiar, along the deck, through 
doorways, and into a big room, all green and 
white. All round the edge were beds, into one 
of which I was helped. In the centre of the room 
were beds that somehow reminded me of cots. 
I dare say there was a low railing round the beds 
that gave me this impression. A Scotch nurse 
looked after me. These nurses were all in gray 
and red; the others had been in blue. I won- 
dered what was the difference. I asked the 
name of the ship ; they said it was Asturias. 

Later on a steward brought a menu, and I 
chose my own dinner. Apparently I could eat 
what I liked. The doctor looked at my wound, 
and said it could wait until morning before being 
dressed ; he pleased me. I was more comfortable 
than I had been yet. The boat was not due out 
till about 1 A. M. At eleven o'clock I again 
asked for morphia, and so slept four hours. 

Sunday 

"I represent Messrs. Cox and Co. Is there 
anything I can do for any of you gentlemen?" 



310 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

A short, squarely built man, with a black suit, 
a bowler hat, and a small brown bag, stepped 
briskly into the room. He gave me intense 
pleasure: as he talked to a Scotch officer who 
wanted some ready cash, I felt that I was indeed 
back in England. It was a hot sunny day ; and 
a bowler hat on such a day made me feel sure 
that this was really Southampton, and not all a 
dream. Sir, whoever you are, I thank you for 
your most appropriate appearance. 

The hospital ship had been alongside nearly 
an hour, I believe. It was three o'clock in the 
afternoon. Breakfast, the dressing of my wound 
again, lunch ; all had followed in an uneventful 
succession. The throbbing of the engines as the 
boat steamed quietly along had been hardly 
noticeable at all. At last there was a bustle, and 
we were carried out of the room, out into the 
sunshine again, and along the quay to the train. 
Here I was given a berth in the middle tier this 
time, for which I was very thankful. I felt so 
utterly tired ; and the weight of my arm across 
my body was intolerable. 

That seemed a long, long journey too ; but I 
got tea without delay this time, and it was hot. 
At Famborough the train stopped and a few 
men were taken out. The rest came on to 
London. 

' ' Is there any special hospital in London you 



WOUNDED 311 

want to go to?" said a brisk E.A.M.C. official, 
when we reached Waterloo. 

' ' No, ' ' I answered. 

He wrote on a label, and put that round my 
neck also. 

''Lady Carnarvon's," he said. 

I lay for some time on the platform of Water- 
loo station, gazing up at the vault in the roof. 
Porters and stretcher-bearers stood about, and 
gazed down at one in silence. Then I was moved 
into a motor ambulance, and a Eed Cross lady 
took her seat in the back. My head was in the 
front, so that I could see nothing. Just before 
the car went off, a policeman put his head in. 

''Any milk or anything?" 

"Would you like any milk or beef tea?" the 
lady said. 

"Milk, please." 

"He says he would like a little milk, ' * said the 
lady. 

And then we drove off. 

Monday 

It was somewhere about ten o'clock Monday 
morning. The sister had just finished dressing 
my arm ; the .doctor had poked it about ; now it 
lay cool and quiet along by my side. I had not 
slept that night again, except with morphia. I 
still felt extraordinarily tired, but was very com- 



312 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

fortable. I watclied the tall sister in blue with 
the white headdress that reminded me of a nun's 
cap. She was so strong and quiet, and seemed 
to know that my hand always wanted support 
at the wrist when she lifted my arm. I did not 
want to talk, just to lie. 

Suddenly I realized that my head was no 
longer buzzing. I knew that I should sleep to- 
night — at last! My body relaxed: the tension 
suddenly melted away. 

''Hurrah!" I thought, ''I have not got to 
move, or think, or decide — and I can just lie f oi; 
hours, for days. ' ' 

At last I was out of the grip of war. 



CHAPTER XVII 
CONCLUSION 

IT was a slumbrous afternoon in September. 
My wound bad healed up a month ago, and I 
was lazily convalescent at my aunt's house in 
one of the most beautiful parts of Kent. The 
six soldiers who were also convalescent there 
were down in the hop-garden. For hop-picking 
was in full swing. I was sitting in a deck-chair 
with Don Quixote on my knees; but I was not 
reading. I had apparently broken the offensive 
power of the army of midges by making a bril- 
liant counter-attack with a pipe of Chairman. 
The sun blazed mercilessly on the croquet-lawn ; 
the balls were lying all together round one hoop : 
for there was a golf-croquet tournament in prog- 
ress, and the mallets stood about against various 
hoops; one very tidy and proper mallet was 
standing primly in the stand at one corner. My 
chair was well sited under the cool shade of a 
large mulberry tree, in whose thick lofty 
branches the wind rustled with a delicious little 
sigh ; sometimes a regular little gust would send 
the boughs swishing, and then a little rain of 
red and white mulberries would plop on to the 

313 



314 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

grass, and strike the suirmier-house roof with a 
smart patter. On the grass-bank at the side of 
the lawn, by a blazing border of orange and red 
nasturtiums, a black cat was squatting with tail 
slowly waving to and fro, watching a fine large 
tabby that was sniffing at the nasturtiums in a 
nonchalant manner. They were the best of 
friends, playing that most interesting of all 
games, war. 

I was not reading : I was listening to the in- 
cessant murmur that came from far away across 
the Medway, across the garden of England, and 
across the Channel and the flats of Flanders. 
That sound came from Picardy. All day the 
insistent throb had been in the air; sometimes 
faint bumps were clearly distinguishable, at 
other times it was nothing but one steady vibra- 
tion. But always it was there, that distant 
growl, that insistent mutter. Even in this per- 
fect peace, I could not escape the War. 

To-day I felt completely well; the lassitude 
and inertness of convalescence were gone — at 
any rate, for the moment. My mind was very 
clear, and I could think surely and rapidly. The 
cats reminded me of the lusty family that lived 
in the cellar in the Cuinchy trenches, and the 
murmur of the guns drew my thoughts across 
the Channel. I tried to imagine trenches run- 
ning across the lawn, with communication 
trenches running back to a support line through 



CONCLUSION 315 

the meadow ; a few feet of brick wall would be 
all that would be left of the bouse, and this 
would conceal my snipers; the mulberry tree 
would long ago have been razed to the ground, 
and every scrap of it used as firewood in our 
dug-outs; this desk chair of mine might pos- 
sibly be in use in Company Headquarters in one 
of the cellars. No, it was not easy to imagine 
war without seeing it. 

I picked up the paper that had fallen at my 
side. There had been more terrible fighting on 
the Somme, and it had seemed very marvellous 
to a journalist as he lay on a hill some two miles 
back, and watched through his field-glasses: it 
was wonderful that the men advancing (if in- 
deed he could really see them at all in the smoke 
of a heavy artillery barrage) still went on, al- 
though their comrades dropped all round them. 
Yet I wondered what else anyone could do but 
go on? Run back, with just as much likelihood 
of being shot in doing so? Or, even if he did 
get back, to certain death as a deserter ? Every- 
one knows the safest place is in a trench; and 
it is a trench you are making for. Lower down 
on the page came a description of the wounded ; 
he had talked to so many of them, and they were 
all smiling, all so cheerful; smoking cigarettes 
and laughing. They shook their fists, and 
shouted that the only thing they wanted to do 
was to get back into it ! Pah 1 I threw the paper 



316 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

down in disgust. Surely no one wants to read 
such stuff, I thought. Of course the men who 
were not silent, in a dull stupefied agony, were 
smiling: what need to say that a man with a 
slight wound was laughing at his luck, just as 
I had smiled that early morning when the trolley 
took me down from Maple Redoubt? And who 
does not volunteer for an unpleasant task, when 
he knows he cannot possibly get it? Want to 
get back into it, indeed ! Ask Tommy ten years 
hence whether he wants to be back in the middle 
of it again! 

I wondered why people endured such cheap 
journalism. What right had men who have 
never seen war at all, who creep up on bicycles 
to get a glimpse of it through telescopes, who 
pester wounded men, and then out of their pic- 
torial imagination work up a vivid description 
— ^what right have they to insult heroes by say- 
ing that ''their wonderful spirit makes up for 
it all," that 'Hhe paramount impression is one 
of glory"? Are not our people able to bear the 
truth, that war is utterly hellish, that we do not 
enjoy it, that we hate it, hate it, hate it all? 
And then it struck me how ignorant people still 
were ; how uncertainly they spoke, these people 
at home : it was as though they dared not think 
things out, lest what they held most dear should 
be an image shattered by another point of 
view. 



CONCLUSION 317 

Somehow people were amazed at the cheerful- 
ness, the doggedness, the endurance under pain, 
the indifference to death, shown every minute 
during this war. I thought of the men whom I 
had seen in hospital. One man had had his right 
foot amputated ; it used to give me agony to see 
his stump dressed every day. Another man had 
both legs amputated above the knees. Yet they 
were so wonderfully cheerful, so apparently 
content with life ! As though alone in the black- 
ness of night they did not long for the activity 
denied them for the rest of their life. As though 
their cheerfulness — (do not think I belittle its 
heroism) — as though their cheerfulness justi- 
fied the thing! 

Another thing I had noticed. An old man told 
me he was so struck with the heroism, the cour- 
age, the indifference to death, shown by the 
ordinary unromantic man. Some men had been 
converted, too, their whole lives changed, their 
vices eradicated, by this war. So much good 
was coming from it. People, too, at home were 
so changed, so sobered; they were looking into 
the selfishness of their lives at last. Again I 
thought, as though all that justified the thing! 

Oh! you men and women who did not know 
before the capabilities of human nature, I 
thought, please take note of it now; and after 
the war do not underestimate the quality of 
mankind. Did it need a war to tell you that a 



318 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

man can be heroic, resolute, courageous, cheer- 
ful, and capable of sacrifice? There were those 
who could have told you that before this war. 

There was a lull in the vibration. I turned 
in my chair, and listened. Then it began again. 

''People are afraid to think it out," I said. 
"I have not seen the Somme fighting, but I know 
what war is. Its quality is not altered by multi- 
plication or intensity. The colour of life-blood 
is a constant red. Let us look into this business ; 
let us face all the facts. Let us not flinch from 
any aspect of the truth. ' ' 

And my thoughts ran somewhat as follows: 

First of all. War is evil — utterly evil. Let us 
be sure of that first. It is an evil instrument, 
even if it be used for motives that are good. I, 
who have been through war and know it, say 
that it is evil. I knew it before the war ; instinct, 
reason, religion told me that war was evil ; now 
experience has told me also. 

It is a strange synthesis, this war : it is a syn- 
thesis of adventure, dullness, good spirits, and 
tragedy; but none of these things are new to 
human experience ; nor is human nature altered 
by war. It is at war as a whole that we must 
look in order to appreciate its quality. And 
what is war seen as a whole, or rather seen in 
th€ light of my eight months' experience? For 
no one man can truly appraise war. 

I have seen and felt the adventure of war, its 



CONCLUSION 319 

deadly fascination and excitement: it is the 
greatest game on earth: that is its terrible 
power : there is such a wild temptation to paint 
up its interest and glamour : it gives such scope 
to daring, to physical courage, to high spirits: 
it makes so many prove themselves heroic, that 
were it not for the fall of the arrow, men would 
call the drawing of the bow good. I have seen 
the dullness, the endless monotony, the dogged 
labour, the sheer power of will conquering the 
body and *' carrying on": there is good in that, 
too. In the jollity, the humour, the good-fellow- 
ship is nothing but good also. There is good in 
all these things ; for these are qualities of human 
nature triumphing in spite of war. These things 
are not war ; they are the good in man prosti- 
tuted to a vile thing. 

For I have seen the real face of war : I have 
seen men killed, mutilated, blown to little pieces ; 
I have seen men crippled for life ; I have looked 
in the face of madness, and I know that many 
have gone mad under its grip. I have seen fine 
natures break and crumble under the strain. I 
have seen men grow brutalized, and coarsened 
in this war. (God will judge justly in the end; 
meanwhile, there are thousands among us — yes, 
and among our enemy too — brutalized through 
no fault of theirs). I have lost friends killed 
(and shall lose more yet) , friends with whom I 
have lived and suffered so long. 



320 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

Wlio is for war now 1 Its adventure, its hero- 
ism? Bah! Yet this is not all. 

For war spares none. It desecrates the beauty 
of the earth ; it ruins, it destroys, it wastes ; it 
starves children; it drives out old men, and 
women, homeless. And most terrible of all, it 
brings agony to every household: it is like a 
plague of the firstborn. Do not think I have 
forgotten you, women, and old men. You, too, 
have to endure the agony of the arena ; you are 
compelled to sit and watch us fight the beasts. 
Every mother is there in agony, watching her 
baby, and unable to stretch a finger to help. 
This, too, is war — the anguish of mothers whose 
sons perish, of wives who lose their husbands, 
of girls robbed for all time of marriage and 
motherhood. 

And this vile thing is still perpetrated upon 
the earth among peoples who have long ago 
declared human sacrifice impossible and bar- 
baric. 

This then is a basal fact. We have faced it 
fairly. The instrument is vile. What then of 
the motive? What is the motive which drives 
us to use this evil instrument? And I see you 
fathers and mothers waiting to hear what I shall 
say. For there are people who whisper that we 
who are fighting are vindictive, that we lust for 
the blood of our enemies, that we are coarse and 
brutal, that we are unholy champions of what 



CONCLUSION 321 

we call a just cause. Again let us face the facts. 
And to these whisperers I answer boldly : *' Yes ! 
we are coarse, some of us; we are vindictive; 
we hate; we do not deny it." For war in its 
vileness taints its human instruments too. 
When Davidson died I cried death upon his mur- 
derers. I called them devils, and worse. I am 
not ashamed. 

That is not the point. What I or Tommy may 
be at a given moment is not the point. The 
question is, with what motives did we enter this 
war, agree to take up this vile instrument ? We 
cannot help if it soils our hands. What is our 
motive in fighting in the arena 1 What provokes 
the dumb heroism of our soldiers? Why did 
men flock to the colours, volunteer in millions 
for the arena? You know. I who have lived 
with them eight months in France, I also know. 
It was because a people took up this vile instru- 
ment and used it from desire of power. Be- 
cause they trampled on justice, and challenged 
us to thwart them. Because they willed war for 
the sake of wrong ; because they said that force 
was master of the world, and they set out to 
prove it. 

Yet, it is sometimes said, war is unchristian. 
If men were Christian there would be no war. 
You cannot conquer evil by evil. I agree, if men 
were Christian there would be no war. I agree 
that you cannot conquer evil by evil; but it is 



322 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

war that is evil, not our motive in going to war. 
We are conquering an evil spirit by a good 
spirit, even if we are using an evil instrument. 
And if you say that Christ would not fight, I 
say that none of us would fight if the world had 
attained the Christian plane towards which we 
are slowly rising: but we are still on a lower 
plane, and in it there is a big war raging ; and in 
the arena there are many who have felt Christ 
by their side. 

That, then, is the second point. I knew that 
war was vile, before I went into it. I have seen 
it : I do not alter my opinion. I went into this 
war prepared to sacrifice my life to prove that 
right is stronger than wrong ; I have stood again 
and again with a traverse between me and 
death ; I have faced the possibility of madness. 
I foresaw all this before I went into this war. 
What difference does it make that I have ex- 
perienced it? It makes no difference. Let no 
one fear that our sacrifice has been in vain. 
We have already won what we are fighting for. 
The will for war, that aggressive power, with 
all the cards on its side prepared, striking at its 
own moment, has already failed against a spirit, 
weaker, unprepared, taken unawares. And so 
I am clear on my second point. We are fighting 
from just motives, and we have already baulked 
injustice. Aggressive force, the power that took 
up the cruel weapon of war, has failed. No one 



CONCLUSION 323 

can ever say that Ms countrymen have laid down 
their lives in vain. 

I got up from the chair, and started walking 
about the garden. Everything was so clear. 
Before going out to the war I had thought these 
things; but the thoughts were fluid, they ran 
about in mazy patterns, they were elusive, and 
always I was frightened of meeting unanswer- 
able contradictions to my theorising from men 
who had actually seen war. Now my conclu- 
sions seemed crystallised by irrefutable experi- 
ence into solid truth. 

After a while I sat down again and resumed 
my train of thought : 

War is evil. Justice is stronger than Force. 
Yet, was there need of all this bloodshed to 
prove this? For this war is not as past wars; 
this is every man's war, a war of civihans, a 
war of men who hate war, of men who fight for 
a cause, who are compelled to kill and hate it. 
That is another thing that people will not face. 
Men whisper that Tommy does not hate Fritz. 
Again I say, away with this whispering. Let us 
speak it out plain and bold. Private Davies, my 
orderly, formerly a shepherd of Blaenau Fest- 
iniog, has no quarrel with one Fritz Schneider 
of Hamburg who is sitting in the trench opposite 
the Matterhorn sap; yet he will bayonet him 
certainly if he comes over the top, or if we go 



324 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

over into the German trenches ; ay, he will per- 
form this action with a certain amount of bru- 
tality too, for I have watched him jabbing at 
rats with a bayonet through the wires of a rat 
trap, and I know that he has in him a savage 
vein of cruelty. But when peace is declared, he 
and Fritz will light a bonfire of trench stores in 
No Man's Land, and there will be the end of 
their quarrel. I say boldly, I know. For indeed 
I know Davies very well indeed. 

Again I say, was there need of all this blood- 
shed ? Who is responsible ? Who is responsible 
for Lance-Corporal Allan lying in the trench in 
Maple Redoubt 1 Again I see yon glittering eyes 
looking down upon me in the arena. And Davies, 
too, in his slow simple way, is beginning to take 
you in, and to ask you why he is put there to 
fight? Is it for your pleasure? Is it for your 
expediency ? Is it a necessary part of your great 
game? Necessary? Necessary for whom? 
Davies and Fritz alike are awaiting your an- 
swer. 

It is hard to trace ultimate causes. It is hard 
to fix absolute responsibility. There were many 
seeds sown, scattered, and secretly fostered be- 
fore they produced this harvest of blood. The 
seeds of cruelty, selfishness, ambition, avarice, 
and indifference, are always liable to swell, 
grow, and bud, and blossom suddenly into the 
red flower of war. Let every man look into his 



CONCLUSION 325 

heart, and if the seeds are there let him make 
quick to root them out while there is time; un- 
less he wishes to join those glittering eyes that 
look down upon the arena. 

These are the seeds of war. And it is because 
they know that we, too, are not free from them, 
that certain men have stood out from the arena 
as a protest against war. These men are real 
heroes, who for their conscience's sake are en- 
during taunts, ignominy, misunderstanding, and 
worse. Most men and women in the arena are 
cursing them, and, as they struggle in agony and 
anguish they beat their hands at them and cry 
"You do not care." I, too, have cursed them, 
when I was mad with pain. But I know them, 
and I know that they are true men. I would not 
have one less. They are witnesses against war. 
And I, too, am fighting war. Men do not under- 
stand them now, but one day they will. 

I know that there are among us, too, the seeds 
of war: no cause has yet been perfect. But I 
look at the facts. We did not start, we did not 
want this war. We have gone into it, fighting 
for the better cause. Whether, had we been 
more Christian, we might have prevented the 
war, is not the point. We did not want this war : 
we are fighting against it. It was the seeds of 
war in Germany that were responsible. And 
so history will judge. 

But what of the future ? How are we to save 



326 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

future generations from going down into the 
arena? We will rearrange the map of Europe: 
we will secure the independence of small states : 
we will give the power to the people : there shall 
be an end of tyrannies. So men speak easily of 
an international spirit, of a world conference for 
peace. There is so great a will-power against 
war, they say, that we will secure the world for 
the future. Millions of men know the vileness 
of war ; they will devise ways and means to pre- 
vent its recurrence. I agree. Let us try all 
ways. Yet I see no guarantee in all this against 
the glittering eyes: I see no power in all this 
knowledge against a new generation fostering 
and harvesting the seeds of war. Men have long 
known that war is evil. Did that knowledge pre- 
vent this war ? Will that knowledge secure India 
or China from the power of the glittering eyes? 

I walked up and down the lawn, my eyes glow- 
ing, my brain working hard. Here around me 
was all the beauty of an old garden, its long bor- 
ders full of phloxes, delphiniums, stocks, and all 
the old familiar flowers ; the apples glowed red 
in the trees ; the swallows were skimming across 
the lawn. In the distance I could hear the rum- 
ble of the wagon bringing up the afternoon 
load of hop-pokes to the oasthouse. Yet what 
I had seen of war was as true, had as really hap- 
pened, as all this. It would be so easy to forget. 



CONCLUSION 327 

after the war. And yet to forget might mean a 
seed of war. I must never forget Lance-Cor- 
poral Allan. 

There is only one sure way, I said at last. And 
again a clear conviction filled me. There is only 
one way to put an end to the arena. Pledges and 
treaties have failed ; and force will fail. These 
things may bring peace for a time, but they can- 
not crush those glittering eyes. There is only 
one Man whose eyes have never glittered. Look 
at the palms of your hands, you, who have had 
a bullet through the middle of it ! Did they not 
give you morphia to ease the pain ? And did you 
not often cry out alone in the darkness in the 
terrible agony, that you did not care who won 
the war if only the pain would cease? Yet one 
Man there was who held out His hand upon the 
wood, while they knocked, knocked, knocked in 
the nail, every knock bringing a jarring, excru- 
ciating pain, every bit as bad as yours. And 
any moment His will-power could have weak- 
ened, and He could have saved Himself that aw- 
ful pain. And then they nailed through the other 
hand : and then the feet. And as they lifted the 
Cross, all the weight came upon the pierced 
hands. And when He had tasted the vinegar He 
would not drink. And any moment He could 
have come down from the Cross : yet He so cared 
that love should win the war against evil, that 



328 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

He never wavered, His eyes never glittered. Do 
you want to put an end to the arena? Here is a 
Man to follow. In hoc signo vinces. 

I stood up again, and stretched out my hands. 
And as I did so a memory came back vivid and 
strong. I remembered the night when I stood 
out on the hillside by Trafalgar Square, under 
the moon. And I remembered how I had felt a 
strength out of the pain, and even as the strength 
came a more unutterable weakness, the weakness 
of a man battering against a wall of steel. The 
sound of the relentless guns had mocked at me. 
Now as I stood on the lawn, I heard the long 
continuous vibration of the guns upon the 
Somme. 

' ' You are War, ' ' I said aloud. ^ ' This is your 
hour, the power of darkness. But the time will 
come when we shall follow the Man who has con- 
quered your last weapon, death : and then your 
walls of steel will waver, cringe, and fall, melted 
away before the fire of LOVE." 



In Memoriam 

BERNARD ADAMS 

JOHN BEENAED PYE ADAMS was born 
on November 15th, 1890, at Beckenham, 
Kent. From his first school at Clare House, 
Beckenham, he obtained an entrance scholar- 
ship to Malvern, where he gained many Classi- 
cal and English prizes and became School Pre- 
fect. In December, 1908, he won an open Clas- 
sical scholarship at St. John's College, Cam- 
bridge, where he went into residence in October, 
1909. He was awarded in 1911 Sir William 
Browne's gold medals (open to the University) 
for a Greek epigram and a Latin ode, and in 
1912 he won the medal for the Greek epigram 
again, and graduated with a First Class in the 
Classical Tripos. In his fourth year he read 
Economics. 

On leaving Cambridge he was appointed by 
the India Office to be Warden and Assistant 
Educational Adviser at the Hostel for Indian 
Students at Cromwell Eoad, South Kensington. 
"He threw himself," writes Dr. T. W. Arnold, 
C.I.E., Secretary of Indian Students, *'with the 
enthusiasm of his ardent nature into the vari- 

329 



330 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 

ous activities connected with 21 Cromwell Road, 
and endeared himself both to the Indian stu- 
dents and to his colleagues." Adams was al- 
ways a quiet man, but his high abilities, despite 
his unobtrusiveness, could not be altogether 
hidden; and in London, as in Cambridge, his 
intellect and his gift for friendship had their 
natural outcome. Mr. C. E. Mallet, of the India 
Office, bears testimony to *Hhe very high value 
which we all set on his work. He had great gifts 
of sympathy and character, strength as well as 
kindliness, influence as well as understanding; 
and these qualities won him — in the rather diffi- 
cult work in which he helped so loyally and well 
— a rare and noticeable measure of esteem." 
On his side, he felt that the choice had been 
a right one ; he liked his work, and he learned a 
great deal from it. 

His ultimate purpose was missionary work in 
India, and the London experience brought him 
into close touch with Indians from every part 
of India and of every religion. 

In November, 1914, he joined up as lieutenant 
in the Welsh regiment with which these pages 
deal, and he obtained a temporary captaincy in 
the following spring. When he went out to the 
front in October, 1915, he resumed his lieuten- 
ancy, but was very shortly given charge of a 
company, a position which he retained until he 
was wounded in June, 1916, when he returned 



BERNARD ADAMS 331 

to England. He only went out to the front again 
on January 31st, 1917. In the afternoon of 
February 26th he was wounded while leading 
his men in an attack and died the following day 
in the field hospital. 

These few sentences record the bare land- 
marks of a career which, in the judgment of his 
friends, would have been noteworthy had it not 
been so prematurely cut short. For instance, 
here is what his friend, T. R. Glover, of St. 
John's, wrote in The Eagle (the St. John's Col- 
lege magazine) and elsewhere: 

*' Bernard Adams was my pupil during his 
Classical days at St. John's, and we were 
brought into very close relations. He remains 
in my mind as one of the very best men I have 
ever had to teach — best every way, in mind and 
soul and all his nature. He had a natural gift 
for writing — a natural habit of style ; he wrote 
without artifice, and achieved the expression of 
what he thought and what he felt in language 
that was simple and direct and pleasing. [A 
College Prize Essay of his of those days was 
printed in The Eagle {vol. xxvii, 47-60) — on 
Wordsworth's Prelude.'] He was a man of the 
quiet and reserved kind, who did not talk much, 
for whom, perhaps, writing was a more obvious 
form of utterance than speech. 

''It was clear to those who knew him that he 



332 NOTHING OF IMPOETANCE 

put conscience into his thinking — he was seri- 
ous, above all about religion, and he was honest 
with himself. Other people will take religion 
at secondhand; he was of another type. He 
thought things out quietly and clearly, and then 
decided. His choice of Economics as a second 
subject at Cambridge was dictated by the feel- 
ing that it would prepare him for his life's work 
in the Christian ministry. There was little hope 
in it of much academic distinction — but that 
was not his object. A man who had thought 
more of himself would have gone on with Clas- 
sics, in the hope (a very reasonable one) of a 
Fellowship. Adams was not working for his own 
advancement. The quiet simple way in which, 
without referring to it, he dismissed academic 
distinction, gives the measure of the man — 
clear, definite, unselfish and devoted. His ideal 
was service, and he prepared for it — at Cam- 
bridge, and with his Indian students in London. 

When the war came he had difficulties of de- 
cision as to the course he should pursue. Like 
others who had no gust for war, and no animos- 
ity against the enemy, he took a commission, not 
so much to fight against as to fight for; the prin- 
ciples at stake appealed to him, and with an in- 
ner reluctance against the whole business he 
went into it — once again the quiet, thought-out 
sacrifice. ' ' 

In this phase of his career his characteristic 



BERNARD ADAMS 333 

conscientiousness was shown by the thorough- 
ness and success with which he performed his 
military duties ''He is a real loss to the regi- 
ment," wrote a senior oflficer; ''everybody who 
knew him had a very high opinion of his mil- 
itary efficiency." 

As is so often the case, a quiet and reserved 
manner hid a brave heart. When it came to per- 
sonal danger he impressed men as being uncon- 
scious of it. "I never met a man who displayed 
coolly more utter disregard for danger." And 
in this spirit he led his men against the enemy — 
and fell. From the last message that he gave 
the nurse for his people, "Tell them I'm all 
right," it is clear that he died with as quiet a 
mind and as surrendered a will as he lived. 

"What we have lost who knew him," writes 
Mr. Glover, "these lines may hint — ^I do not 
think we really know the extent of our loss. But 
we keep a great deal, a very great deal — quid- 
quid ex illo amavimus, quidquid mirati sumus, 
manet mansurumque est. Yes, that is true ; and 
from the first my sorrow (it may seem an odd 
confession) was for those who were not to know 
him, whose chance was lost, for the work he was 
not to do. For himself, if ever a man lived his 
life, it was he ; twenty-five or twenty-six years 
is not much, perhaps, as a rule, but here it was 
life and it was lived to some purpose ; it told and 
it is not lost." 



314 NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE 



A GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN 
NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE. 



R. A. M. C. 


Royal Army Medical Corps. 


A. S. C. 


Army Service Corps. 


G. H. Q. 


General Headquarters. 


N. C. 0. 


Non-Commissioned Officer. 


C. 0. 


Command i rig Officer. 


R. E. 


Royal Engineers. 


C. T. 


Communication Trench, 


0. C. 


Officer Commanding. 


R. F. C. 


Royal Flying Corps. 


R. T. 0. 


Railway Transport Office. 


M. 0. 


Medical Officer. 


R. S. M. 


Regimental Sergeant Major. 


H. E. 


High Explosive. 


T. M. Battery 


Trench Mortar Battery. 


R. G. 


Rifle Grenade. 


F. L. 0. 


Forward Liaison Officer. 


S. A. A 


Small Arms Ammunition. 


C. S. M. 


Company Sergeant Major. 


C. Q. M. S. 


Company Quartermaster Sergeant. 


D. S. 0. 


Distinguished Service Order. 


D. C. M. 


Distinguished Conduct Medal. 


V. A. D. (Nurses) Voluntary Aid Detachment. 


T. M. 0. 


Trench Mortar Officer. 


Y. M. C. A. 


Young Men 's Christian Association. 


L. G. 


Lewis Gun. 



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